1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
7 Each release reports the NEWS in the following sections:
9 * Changes to the distribution
10 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
11 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
12 * Changes to the C interface
15 Changes since the stable branch:
17 * Changes to the distribution
19 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
21 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
23 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
24 At the moment it is being used to handle Guile's bignums.
26 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
28 Guile now has config.h and libguile/scmconfig.h. The former is not
29 installed and is private. The latter is installed and used by Guile's
30 public headers. config.h is generated by configure and autoheader,
31 and scmconfig.h is generated by a small C program, gen-scmconfig at
32 build time based in part on the contents of config.h.
34 Seen libguile/__scm.h and gen-scmconfig.c for more information.
36 Note too that nearly all public defines are now set to either 1 or 0
37 rather than being set to 1 or left undefined. See gen-scmconfig.c and
38 the GNU Coding Guidelines for the rationale. However, pre-existing
39 defines that were not renamed were not changed. i.e. GUILE_DEBUG is
40 still either 1 or undefined.
42 ** The INSTALL file is now the generic automake installed one.
44 Guile specific instructions can be found in the README.
46 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
48 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
49 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
50 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
51 so the current effective-version is "1.6". The effective version
52 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
53 items like the versioned share directory name
54 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.6.
56 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
57 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
58 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
59 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
60 with each micro release during a stable series.
62 ** There are two new thread implementation options: "null" and "coop-pthreads".
64 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
65 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
66 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
67 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
68 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
71 The "coop-pthread" (or shorter: "copt") thread implementation will use
72 portable POSIX threads but will restrict them so that only one thread
73 can execute 'in Guile' at any one time. This option will give you the
74 same basic behavior as the old "coop" option, but hopefully in a more
77 The default is now "coop-pthread", unless your platform doesn't have
78 pthreads, in which case "null" threads are used.
80 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
82 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when
83 you don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but
84 where you have some section(s) of code which you consider can run
85 in parallel to other sections.
87 They "flag" (with dynamic extent) sections of code to be of
88 "serial" or "parallel" nature and have the single effect of
89 preventing a serial section from being run in parallel with any
90 serial section (including itself).
92 Both serialize and parallelize can be nested. If so, the
93 inner-most construct is in effect.
95 NOTE 1: A serial section can run in parallel with a parallel
98 NOTE 2: If a serial section S is "interrupted" by a parallel
99 section P in the following manner: S = S1 P S2, S2 is not
100 guaranteed to be resumed by the same thread that previously
103 WARNING: Spawning new threads within a serial section have
104 undefined effects. It is OK, though, to spawn threads in unflagged
105 sections of code where neither serialize or parallelize is in
108 A typical usage is when Guile is used as scripting language in some
109 application doing heavy computations. If each thread is
110 encapsulated with a serialize form, you can then put a parallelize
111 form around the code performing the heavy computations (typically a
112 C code primitive), enabling the computations to run in parallel
113 while the scripting code runs single-threadedly.
115 ** Guile now includes its own version of libltdl.
117 We now use a modified version of libltdl that allows us to make
118 improvements to it without having to rely on libtool releases.
120 * Changes to the standalone interpreter
122 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
124 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
125 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
127 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
129 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
130 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
132 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
134 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
137 ** Checking for duplicate bindings in module system
139 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
142 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more duplicates
143 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
151 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
152 has been detected is to
154 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
155 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
156 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
159 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
162 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
164 to your .guile init file.
166 The syntax for the :duplicates option is:
168 :duplicates HANDLER-NAME | (HANDLER1-NAME HANDLER2-NAME ...)
170 Specifying multiple handlers is useful since some handlers (such as
171 replace) can defer conflict resolution to others. Each handler is
172 tried until a binding is selected.
174 Currently available duplicates handlers are:
176 check report an error for bindings with a common name
177 warn issue a warning for bindings with a common name
178 replace replace bindings which have an imported replacement
179 warn-override-core issue a warning for imports which override core bindings
180 and accept the override
181 first select the first encountered binding (override)
182 last select the last encountered binding (override)
184 These two are provided by the (oop goops) module:
186 merge-generics merge generic functions with a common name
187 into an <extended-generic>
188 merge-accessors merge accessors with a common name
190 The default duplicates handler is:
192 (replace warn-override-core warn last)
194 A recommended handler (which is likely to correspond to future Guile
195 behavior) can be installed with:
197 (default-duplicate-binding-handler '(replace warn-override-core check))
199 ** New define-module option: :replace
201 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
204 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
205 for the core binding `format'.
207 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
209 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
210 a prefix to all imported bindings.
213 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
215 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
218 ** Merging generic functions
220 It is sometimes tempting to use GOOPS accessors with short names.
221 For example, it is tempting to use the name `x' for the x-coordinate
224 Assume that we work with a graphical package which needs to use two
225 independent vector packages for 2D and 3D vectors respectively. If
226 both packages export `x' we will encounter a name collision.
228 This can now be resolved automagically with the duplicates handler
229 `merge-generics' which gives the module system license to merge all
230 generic functions sharing a common name:
232 (define-module (math 2D-vectors)
233 :use-module (oop goops)
236 (define-module (math 3D-vectors)
237 :use-module (oop goops)
240 (define-module (my-module)
241 :use-module (math 2D-vectors)
242 :use-module (math 3D-vectors)
243 :duplicates merge-generics)
245 x in (my-module) will now share methods with x in both imported
248 There will, in fact, now be three distinct generic functions named
249 `x': x in (2D-vectors), x in (3D-vectors), and x in (my-module). The
250 last function will be an <extended-generic>, extending the previous
253 Let's call the imported generic functions the "ancestor functions". x
254 in (my-module) is, in turn, a "descendant function" of the imported
255 functions, extending its ancestors.
257 For any generic function G, the applicable methods are selected from
258 the union of the methods of the descendant functions, the methods of G
259 itself and the methods of the ancestor functions.
261 This, ancestor functions share methods with their descendants and vice
262 versa. This implies that x in (math 2D-vectors) can will share the
263 methods of x in (my-module) and vice versa, while x in (math 2D-vectors)
264 doesn't share the methods of x in (math 3D-vectors), thus preserving
267 Sharing is dynamic, so that adding new methods to a descendant implies
268 adding it to the ancestor.
270 If duplicates checking is desired in the above example, the following
271 form of the :duplicates option can be used instead:
273 :duplicates (merge-generics check)
275 ** New function: effective-version
277 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
278 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
279 to the distribution" above.
283 Futures is a way of providing an alternative evaluation policy, very
284 similar in principle to "promises". Like promises, futures allow the
285 main process to continue instantly, but while promises postpone
286 evaluation ("lazy" evaluation) until the value is requested, futures
287 immediately starts evaluation in a parallel thread.
289 Futures are good when you want to express that "I'll need the value of
290 this computation sometime soon" and want to allow processing to go on
291 in the background until that time arrives.
293 ** New syntax: future FORM
295 Begin evaluation of FORM in a parallel thread and return the future
296 immediately. (Akin to 'delay'.)
298 ** New procedure: future-ref FUTURE
300 Return the computed value of the future. Wait if the computation is
301 not finished. (Akin to 'force'.)
303 ** New syntax: parallel FORM ...
305 Compute the results of FORM ... in parallel (in a separate thread for
306 each form) and return them as multiple values.
308 ** New syntax: letpar ((VAR EXP) ...) BODYFORM ...
310 Like 'let' but evaluates the binding expressions EXP ... in parallel.
312 ** New functions: par-map, par-for-each PROC ARGLIST ...
314 Like 'map' and 'for-each' but evaluate the procedure PROC in a
315 separate thread for each (set of) argument(s). All applications are
316 guaranteed to be completed before the procedure returns.
318 ** New functions: n-par-map, n-par-for-each N PROC ARGLIST ...
320 Like 'par-map' and 'par-for-each' but evaluate the procedure PROC in N
321 threads. This is useful when PROC uses large amounts of resources
322 and/or the argument list(s) is/are long so that one thread per (set
323 of) argument(s) would consume too much system resources. On a
324 dual-CPU system, N = 4 would often be a good choice.
326 ** New function: n-for-each-par-map N S-PROC P-PROC ARGLIST ...
328 Using N parallel processes, apply S-PROC in serial order to each
329 result of applying P-PROC to each set of arguments in the argument
332 Like a composition of 'for-each' and 'n-par-map', but allows S-PROC to
333 start processing while the results of P-PROC are being produced.
335 ** Fair mutexes and condition variables
337 Fair mutexes and condition variables have been added. The fairness
338 means that scheduling is arranged to give as equal time shares as
339 possible and that threads are awakened in a first-in-first-out
340 manner. This is not guaranteed with standard mutexes and condition
343 In addition, fair mutexes are recursive. Locking a fair mutex that
344 you have already locked will succeed. Every call to lock-mutex must
345 be matched with a call to unlock-mutex. Only the last call to
346 unlock-mutex will actually unlock the mutex.
348 A fair condition variable must be used together with a fair mutex,
349 just as a standard condition variable must be used together with a
352 ** New functions: make-fair-mutex, make-fair-condition-variable'
354 Make a new fair mutex and a new fair condition variable respectively.
356 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
358 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
359 instead if blocking and indicate failure.
361 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
363 The funtion 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
364 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
367 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
369 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
371 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
373 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
374 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
375 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
378 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
379 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
380 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
383 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
384 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
386 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
388 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
389 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
392 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
393 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
395 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
396 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
397 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
398 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
399 level for the current thread.
401 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
403 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
405 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
406 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
409 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
411 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
413 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
416 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
418 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
421 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
422 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
423 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
425 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
426 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
427 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
428 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
439 ERROR: Numerical overflow
441 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
444 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
446 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
447 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
448 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
459 ** We now have uninterned symbols.
461 The new function 'make-symbol' will return a uninterned symbol. This
462 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
463 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
465 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
468 ** pretty-print has more options.
470 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
471 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
472 maximum output width. See its online documentation.
474 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
476 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
477 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
478 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
480 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
482 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
483 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
485 ** Removed: substring-move-left!, substring-move-right!
487 Use `substring-move!' instead.
489 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
491 Change your code to use either procedure->memoizing-macro or, probably better,
492 to use r5rs macros. Also, be aware that macro expansion will not be done
493 during evaluation, but prior to evaluation.
495 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
497 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
498 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
499 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
500 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
501 without the soft port blocking.
503 ** New debugging feature: breakpoints.
505 Guile now has breakpoints. For details see the `Debugging Features'
506 chapter in the reference manual.
508 ** Deprecated: undefine
510 There is no replacement for undefine.
512 * Changes to the C interface
514 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
516 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
517 private or renamed with a more suitable public name. See below for
518 the ones which have been renamed.
520 ** HAVE_STDINT_H and HAVE_INTTYPES_H have been removed from public use.
522 HAVE_STDINT_H and HAVE_INTTYPES_H removed from public use. These are
523 no longer needed since the older uses of stdint.h and inttypes.h are
524 now handled by configure.in and gen-scmconfig.c.
526 ** USE_DLL_IMPORT is no longer defined publically.
528 gen-scmconfig now uses it to decide what contents to place in the
529 public scmconfig.h header without adding the USE_DLL_IMPORT itself.
531 ** HAVE_LIMITS_H has been removed from public use.
533 gen-scmconfig now just uses HAVE_LIMITS_H to decide whether or not to
534 add a limits.h include in scmconfig.h.
536 ** time.h, sys/time.h, etc. #ifdefery has been removed from public headers.
538 gen-scmconfig now just uses the same logic to decide what time related
539 #includes to add to scmconfig.h.
541 ** HAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC has been removed from public use.
543 scmconfig.h now just defines scm_t_timespec.
545 ** HAVE_PTRDIFF has been removed from public use and Guile doesn't
548 Guile now publically defines scm_t_ptrdiff and
549 SCM_SIZEOF_SCM_T_PTRDIFF in scmconfig.h, and all occurrences of
550 ptrdiff_t have been replaced with scm_t_ptrdiff.
552 Guile defines its own type this rather than just relying on ptrdiff_t
553 and SCM_SIZEOF_PTRDIFF_T because Guile actually typedefs long to
554 scm_t_ptrdiff when ptrdiff_t isn't available. A public "typedef long
555 ptrdiff_t" could conflict with other headers.
557 ** HAVE_UINTPTR_T and HAVE_UINTPTR_T have been removed from public use.
559 They are replaced by public definitions of SCM_SIZEOF_UINTPTR_T and
560 SCM_SIZEOF_INTPTR_T. These are defined to 0 if the corresponding type
563 ** The public #define STDC_HEADERS has been renamed to SCM_HAVE_STDC_HEADERS.
565 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
567 ** The public #define HAVE_SYS_SELECT has been renamed to
568 SCM_HAVE_SYS_SELECT_H.
570 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
572 ** The public #define HAVE_FLOATINGPOINT_H has been renamed to
573 SCM_HAVE_FLOATINGPOINT_H.
575 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
577 ** The public #define HAVE_IEEEFP_H has been renamed to SCM_HAVE_IEEEFP_H.
579 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
581 ** The public #define HAVE_NAN_H has been renamed to SCM_HAVE_NAN_H.
583 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
585 ** The public #define HAVE_WINSOCK2_H has been renamed to SCM_HAVE_WINSOCK2_H.
587 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
589 ** The public #define HAVE_ARRAYS has been renamed to SCM_HAVE_ARRAYS.
591 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
593 ** The public #define STACK_GROWS_UP has been renamed to SCM_STACK_GROWS_UP.
595 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
597 ** The public #define USE_PTHREAD_THREADS has been renamed to
598 SCM_USE_PTHREAD_THREADS.
600 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
602 ** The public #define USE_NULL_THREADS has been renamed to
603 SCM_USE_NULL_THREADS.
605 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
607 ** The public #define USE_COOP_THREADS has been renamed to
608 SCM_USE_COOP_THREADS.
610 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
612 ** SCM_C_INLINE is publically defined if possible.
614 If the platform has a way to define inline functions, SCM_C_INLINE
615 will be defined to that text. Otherwise it will be undefined. This
616 is a little bit different than autoconf's normal handling of the
617 inline define via AC_C_INLINE.
619 ** Guile now publically defines some basic type infrastructure.
624 SCM_SIZEOF_UNSIGNED_CHAR
626 SCM_SIZEOF_UNSIGNED_SHORT
628 SCM_SIZEOF_UNSIGNED_LONG
630 SCM_SIZEOF_UNSIGNED_INT
631 SCM_SIZEOF_LONG_LONG /* defined to 0 if type not available */
632 SCM_SIZEOF_UNSIGNED_LONG_LONG /* defined to 0 if type not available */
646 and when either of these are defined to 1, optionally defines
657 ** The preprocessor define USE_THREADS has been deprecated.
659 Going forward, assume that the thread API is always present.
661 ** The preprocessor define GUILE_ISELECT has been deprecated.
663 Going forward, assume that scm_internal_select is always present.
665 ** The preprocessor define READER_EXTENSIONS has been deprecated.
667 Going forward, assume that the features represented by
668 READER_EXTENSIONS are always present.
670 ** The preprocessor define DEBUG_EXTENSIONS has been deprecated.
672 Going forward, assume that the features represented by
673 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS are always present.
675 ** The preprocessor define DYNAMIC_LINKING has been deprecated.
677 Going forward, assume that the features represented by
678 DYNAMIC_LINKING are always present.
680 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
682 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
683 programs. (Do not use.)
685 ** New function: scm_effective_version
687 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
688 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
689 to the distribution" above.
691 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
693 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
694 arguments are now passed directly:
696 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
698 This is an incompatible change.
700 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
702 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
703 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
704 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
706 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
707 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
709 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
711 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
713 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
714 function in the init section.
716 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
718 ** New macros SCM_VECTOR_REF and SCM_VECTOR_SET.
720 Use these in preference to SCM_VELTS.
722 ** The SCM_VELTS macros now returns a read-only vector. For writing,
723 use the new macros SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS or SCM_VECTOR_SET. The use of
724 SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS is discouraged, though.
726 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
728 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
729 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
730 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
731 stays roughly constant.
733 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
734 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
735 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
736 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
737 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
740 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
741 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
742 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
743 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
745 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
747 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
749 ** The struct scm_cell has been renamed to scm_t_cell
751 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
752 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
753 initializes a new cell (see below).
755 ** New functions for memory management
757 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
758 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
759 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
760 cause aborts in long running programs.
762 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
763 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
765 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
766 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
767 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
768 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
769 details and for upgrading instructions.
771 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
772 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
773 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
775 ** New function: scm_str2string
777 This function creates a scheme string from a 0-terminated C string. The input
780 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
782 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
783 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
784 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
785 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
786 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
788 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
789 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
790 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
792 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, QT_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
793 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
795 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
797 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old macros
798 had problems because with them allocation and initialization was separated and
799 the GC could sometimes observe half initialized cells. Only careful coding by
800 the user of SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
802 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
804 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
807 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
809 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
811 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
813 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or, probably better, to use r5rs
814 macros. Also, be aware that macro expansion will not be done during
815 evaluation, but prior to evaluation.
817 ** Removed from scm_root_state: def_inp, def_outp, def_errp, together
818 with corresponding macros scm_def_inp, scm_def_outp and scm_def_errp.
819 These were undocumented and unused copies of the standard ports at the
820 time that Guile was initialised. Normally the current ports should be
821 used instead, obtained from scm_current_input_port () etc. If an
822 application needs to retain earlier ports, it should save them in a
823 gc-protected location.
825 ** Removed compile time option MEMOIZE_LOCALS
827 Now, caching of local variable positions during memoization is mandatory.
828 However, the option to disable the caching has most probably not been used
831 ** Removed compile time option SCM_RECKLESS
833 Full number of arguments checking of closures is mandatory now. However, the
834 option to disable the checking has most probably not been used anyway.
836 ** Removed compile time option SCM_CAUTIOUS
838 Full number of arguments checking of closures is mandatory now. However, the
839 option to disable the checking has most probably not been used anyway.
841 ** Deprecated configure flags USE_THREADS and GUILE_ISELECT
843 Previously, when the C preprocessor macro USE_THREADS was defined,
844 libguile included a thread API. This API is now always included, even
845 when threads are not really supported. Thus, you don't need to test
848 Analogously, GUILE_ISELECT was defined when the function
849 scm_internal_select was provided by Guile. This function is now
850 always defined, and GUILE_ISELECT with it.
852 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
854 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
855 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
857 ** Removed definitions: scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify,
858 scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify, scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify,
859 scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify, scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell,
860 scm_debug_newcell2, scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH,
861 SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY, SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY,
862 SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED, scm_debug_newcell,
863 scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL,
864 SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL,
865 SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS,
866 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
867 scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3, scm_eval2,
868 root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP,
869 SCM_STRING_UCHARS, SCM_STRING_CHARS, scm_read_only_string_p,
870 scm_makstr, scm_makfromstr, scm_make_shared_substring,
871 scm_tc7_substring, sym_huh, scm_variable_set_name_hint,
872 scm_builtin_variable, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP, SCM_DEFVARIABLEP,
873 scm_internal_with_fluids, scm_make_gsubr, scm_make_gsubr_with_generic,
874 scm_create_hook, list*, SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3,
875 SCM_LIST4, SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9,
876 scm_listify, scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member,
877 scm_end_of_file_key, scm_read_and_eval_x, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum,
878 scm_adjbig, scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big,
879 scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT, scm_subr_entry, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
880 scm_make_subr_opt, scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_with_generic,
881 setjmp_type, setjmp_type, scm_call_catching_errors,
882 scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe, scm_strprint_obj,
883 scm_read_0str, scm_eval_0str, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_SETCHARS,
884 SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_LENGTH_MAX,
885 SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_ROCHARS,
886 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR, scm_strhash,
887 scm_sym2vcell, scm_sym2ovcell_soft, scm_sym2ovcell,
888 scm_intern_obarray_soft, scm_intern_obarray, scm_intern, scm_intern0,
889 scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0, scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup,
890 scm_symbol_value0, scm_string_to_obarray_symbol, scm_intern_symbol,
891 scm_unintern_symbol, scm_symbol_binding, scm_symbol_interned_p,
892 scm_symbol_bound_p, scm_symbol_set_x, scm_gentemp,
893 scm_init_symbols_deprecated, s_vector_set_length_x,
894 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
895 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_OPDIRP, scm_fport, scm_option,
896 SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT,
897 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT, scm_srcprops, scm_srcprops_chunk,
898 scm_info_frame, scm_stack, scm_array, scm_array_dim,
899 SCM_ARRAY_CONTIGUOUS, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_WTA,
900 RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
901 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR,
902 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
903 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING,
904 SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
905 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
906 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
907 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
908 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable
910 Changes since Guile 1.4:
912 * Changes to the distribution
914 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
916 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
918 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
919 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
920 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
921 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
922 indicate major changes in Guile.
924 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
925 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
926 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
927 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
929 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
930 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
931 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
932 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
933 micro version number.
935 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
937 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
939 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
940 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
942 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
944 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
945 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
946 See INSTALL and README for more information.
948 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
950 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
951 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
952 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
955 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
957 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
960 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
962 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
963 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
965 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
967 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
968 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
971 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
973 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
976 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
979 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
981 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
983 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
984 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
985 open-output-string, get-output-string.
987 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
989 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
991 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
994 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
996 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
998 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
1000 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
1001 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
1002 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
1004 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
1006 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
1008 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
1009 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
1018 See README there for more info.
1020 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
1021 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
1024 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
1026 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
1028 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
1030 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
1031 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
1032 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
1034 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
1036 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
1037 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
1038 to be named `and-let*', of course.
1040 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
1041 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
1043 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
1046 (oop goops describe)
1048 (oop goops active-slot)
1049 (oop goops composite-slot)
1051 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
1052 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
1053 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
1055 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
1057 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
1058 in the default environment:
1060 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
1061 %read-line write-line
1063 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
1064 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
1066 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
1068 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
1071 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
1072 can be used for similar functionality.
1074 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
1076 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
1077 it defines two procedures:
1079 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1081 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
1082 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1083 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
1086 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1088 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
1089 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1090 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
1091 write large strings.
1093 ** New module (ice-9 match)
1095 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
1096 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
1098 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
1100 for complete documentation.
1102 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
1104 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
1105 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
1106 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
1107 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
1109 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
1110 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
1114 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
1115 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
1116 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
1119 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
1122 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
1123 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
1125 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
1126 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
1129 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
1132 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
1134 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
1136 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1138 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
1140 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
1141 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
1142 Scheme programs easier.
1144 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
1145 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
1146 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
1147 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
1148 `cond-expand' when using this option.
1151 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
1152 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
1154 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
1157 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
1159 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
1160 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
1161 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
1164 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1166 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
1168 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
1169 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
1170 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
1171 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
1172 was also ASCII, for example.
1174 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
1176 tag - no replacement.
1177 fseek - replaced by seek.
1178 list* - replaced by cons*.
1180 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
1184 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
1185 (define m (make-safe-module))
1186 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
1187 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
1188 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
1190 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
1192 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
1193 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
1194 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
1196 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
1198 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
1199 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
1200 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
1201 from the issues related to the module system.
1203 *** New function: load-extension
1205 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
1207 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
1209 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
1210 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
1211 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
1213 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
1215 This function registers a initialization function for use by
1216 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
1217 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
1218 support dynamic linking).
1220 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
1222 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
1223 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
1224 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
1225 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
1228 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
1229 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
1230 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
1231 library and initialize it explicitely.
1233 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
1234 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
1236 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
1238 (define-module (foo bar))
1240 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
1242 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
1244 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
1245 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
1247 (scheme-report-environment 5)
1248 (null-environment 5)
1249 (interaction-environment)
1255 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
1257 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
1258 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
1259 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
1260 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
1262 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
1263 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
1264 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
1265 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
1266 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
1267 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
1268 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
1269 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
1270 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
1271 one eval to the next.
1273 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
1274 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
1275 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
1276 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
1277 subforms are at the top-level as well.
1279 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
1280 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
1281 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
1282 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
1283 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
1284 used in a lexical environment.
1286 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
1287 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
1288 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
1289 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
1290 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
1291 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
1293 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
1295 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
1296 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
1297 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
1298 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
1299 new facilities: selection and renaming.
1301 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
1302 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
1303 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
1305 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
1306 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
1308 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
1309 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
1310 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1312 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1313 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
1315 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
1316 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
1317 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
1318 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
1321 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1322 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
1323 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
1324 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1326 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1327 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1328 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
1330 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1331 ;; and all four by upcasing.
1332 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
1333 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
1334 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
1336 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1338 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1339 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1340 :renamer upcase-symbol))
1342 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
1343 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
1344 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
1346 See manual for more info.
1348 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
1350 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
1351 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
1352 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
1354 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
1356 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
1357 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
1358 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
1360 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
1361 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
1362 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
1363 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
1365 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
1367 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
1368 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
1370 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
1371 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
1372 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
1373 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
1374 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
1377 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
1378 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
1379 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
1380 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
1381 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
1382 successful and #f if it wasn't.
1384 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
1385 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
1386 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
1387 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
1388 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
1390 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
1391 objects are usually permanent.
1393 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
1394 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
1396 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
1398 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
1399 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
1402 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
1406 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
1411 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
1413 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
1414 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
1415 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
1416 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
1418 ** New function `make-object-property'
1420 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
1421 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
1425 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
1426 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
1430 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
1431 source properties eventually.
1433 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
1435 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
1436 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
1437 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
1439 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
1440 will be removed in the next release.
1442 ** New define-module option: pure
1444 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
1449 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
1452 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
1454 Export names NAME1 ...
1456 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
1457 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
1461 (define-module (foo)
1463 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
1466 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
1471 ** New function: object->string OBJ
1473 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
1475 ** New function: port? X
1477 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
1478 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
1480 ** New function: file-port?
1482 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
1484 ** New function: port-for-each proc
1486 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
1487 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
1488 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
1489 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
1490 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
1492 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
1494 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
1495 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
1496 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
1497 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
1498 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
1501 ** New function: close-fdes fd
1503 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
1504 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
1505 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
1506 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
1509 ** New function: crypt password salt
1511 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
1514 ** New function: chroot path
1516 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
1518 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
1520 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
1523 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
1525 Get or set the priority of the running process.
1527 ** New function: getpass prompt
1529 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
1532 ** New function: flock file operation
1534 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
1536 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
1538 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
1541 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
1543 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
1544 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
1545 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
1546 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
1547 of the temporary file.
1549 ** New function: open-input-string string
1551 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
1552 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
1553 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
1555 ** New function: open-output-string
1557 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
1558 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
1560 ** New function: get-output-string
1562 Return the contents of an output string port.
1564 ** New function: identity
1566 Return the argument.
1568 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
1569 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
1571 ** New function: inet-pton family address
1573 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
1574 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
1575 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1578 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
1579 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
1581 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
1583 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
1584 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
1585 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1588 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
1589 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
1590 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
1594 Use `identity' instead.
1600 ** Deprecated: return-it
1604 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
1606 Use `string-length' instead.
1608 ** Deprecated: flags
1610 Use `logior' instead.
1612 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
1614 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
1615 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
1616 port-for-each is more flexible.
1618 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
1619 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
1620 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
1622 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
1624 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
1626 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
1628 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
1630 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
1632 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
1633 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
1635 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
1636 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
1638 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
1639 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
1641 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
1643 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
1644 Removed function: builtin-bindings
1646 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
1647 Use module system operations for all variables.
1649 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
1651 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
1654 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
1656 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
1657 The following bugs have been fixed:
1659 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
1660 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
1663 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
1664 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
1665 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
1667 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
1668 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
1670 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
1671 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
1674 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
1675 The expansion used to be like so:
1677 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
1679 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
1681 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
1683 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
1684 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
1686 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
1688 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
1689 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
1690 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
1694 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
1695 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
1697 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
1702 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
1703 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
1705 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
1706 and `d', other keywords allowed.
1707 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
1709 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
1712 * Changes to the C interface
1714 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
1716 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
1717 with "_t". What a concept.
1719 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
1721 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
1723 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
1727 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
1728 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
1730 *** C Functions removed
1732 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
1733 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
1734 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
1735 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
1736 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
1737 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
1738 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
1740 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
1742 Use scm_mem2string instead.
1744 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
1746 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
1748 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
1749 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
1751 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
1753 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
1756 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
1758 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
1760 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
1762 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments.
1766 scm_call_1 (proc, arg1);
1768 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
1770 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list
1775 scm_apply_1 (proc, arg1, args);
1777 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
1779 Create a list of the given number of elements.
1781 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
1783 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
1784 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
1786 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
1788 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
1790 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
1791 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
1792 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
1794 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1796 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
1798 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
1799 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
1800 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
1803 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1805 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
1807 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
1808 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
1810 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
1812 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
1813 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
1814 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
1815 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
1817 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
1818 scm_primitive_property_ref
1819 scm_primitive_property_set_x
1820 scm_primitive_property_del_x
1822 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
1823 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
1825 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
1827 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
1828 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
1829 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
1830 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
1832 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
1834 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
1835 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
1836 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
1837 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
1838 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
1839 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
1840 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
1842 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
1843 scm_remember_upto_here
1845 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
1847 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
1849 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
1850 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
1852 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
1854 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
1856 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
1858 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
1860 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
1862 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
1863 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
1864 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
1865 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
1866 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
1867 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
1869 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
1871 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1873 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
1874 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1875 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
1877 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
1879 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
1880 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1881 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
1883 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
1885 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
1886 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
1889 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
1892 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
1893 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
1896 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1898 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
1900 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
1902 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1904 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
1906 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
1908 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
1909 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
1910 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
1911 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
1912 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
1913 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
1914 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
1915 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
1916 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
1917 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
1918 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
1919 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
1920 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
1921 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
1922 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
1924 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
1925 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
1926 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
1927 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
1928 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
1929 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
1930 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
1931 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
1932 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1933 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
1934 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
1935 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
1936 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
1937 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
1938 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
1939 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1940 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1941 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
1942 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
1943 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
1944 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
1945 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
1946 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
1947 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
1948 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
1949 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
1950 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
1951 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
1952 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
1954 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
1956 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
1958 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
1959 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
1961 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
1963 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
1965 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
1967 Use scm_string_hash instead.
1969 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
1971 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
1973 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
1975 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
1977 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
1980 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
1981 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
1983 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
1985 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
1987 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
1989 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
1991 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
1993 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
1995 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
1997 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
2000 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
2002 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
2004 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
2006 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
2007 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
2009 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
2010 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
2012 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
2014 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
2015 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
2016 scm_module_define, scm_define.
2018 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
2020 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
2022 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
2023 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
2025 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
2026 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
2027 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
2028 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
2030 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
2031 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
2032 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
2034 Use the new ones from above instead.
2036 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
2038 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
2039 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
2040 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
2042 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
2043 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
2045 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
2046 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
2049 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
2050 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
2052 Use the new functions instead.
2054 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
2057 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
2059 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
2061 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
2064 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
2066 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
2069 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
2071 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
2074 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
2075 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
2076 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
2078 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
2080 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
2081 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
2083 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
2084 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
2085 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
2086 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
2089 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
2091 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
2092 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
2093 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
2094 inexact for an exact.
2096 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
2097 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
2098 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
2101 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
2102 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
2103 accept an inexact argument.
2105 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
2106 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
2108 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
2111 ** New number validation macros:
2112 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
2116 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
2118 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
2119 scm_unprotect_object.
2121 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
2123 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
2125 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
2128 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
2130 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
2134 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
2136 * Changes to the distribution
2138 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
2140 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
2141 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
2142 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
2143 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
2144 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
2145 obtain these programs.
2146 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
2147 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
2149 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
2150 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
2151 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
2152 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
2153 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
2155 However, this approach means that minor differences between
2156 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
2157 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
2158 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
2162 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
2165 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
2166 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
2167 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
2168 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
2170 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
2172 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
2174 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
2175 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
2177 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
2178 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
2180 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
2181 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
2183 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
2184 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
2185 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
2186 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
2188 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
2190 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
2194 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
2195 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
2197 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
2199 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
2200 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
2202 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
2203 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
2204 number of objects of that kind.
2206 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
2208 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
2209 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
2210 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
2211 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
2212 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
2214 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
2216 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
2218 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
2220 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
2223 ** New module (ice-9 time)
2225 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
2227 ** New module (ice-9 history)
2229 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
2231 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2233 ** New command line option --debug
2235 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
2237 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
2239 ** New help facility
2241 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
2242 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
2243 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
2244 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
2245 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
2246 (help) gives this text
2248 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
2249 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
2251 Examples: (help help)
2253 (help "output-string")
2255 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
2257 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
2259 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
2260 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
2263 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
2264 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
2265 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
2268 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
2269 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
2270 use absolute filenames when possible.
2272 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
2273 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
2274 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
2277 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
2279 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
2280 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
2281 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
2282 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
2284 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
2286 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
2288 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
2289 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
2290 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
2292 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
2293 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
2294 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
2296 (read-enable 'positions)
2297 (debug-enable 'debug)
2299 ** Backtraces in scripts
2301 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
2305 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
2307 at the top of the script.
2309 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
2310 The second enables backtraces.)
2312 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
2314 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
2315 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
2316 substantially faster than before.
2318 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
2319 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
2321 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
2322 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
2324 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
2326 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
2327 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
2328 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
2330 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
2331 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
2332 when this hook is run in the future.
2334 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
2335 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
2337 ** Improvements to garbage collector
2339 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
2340 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
2343 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
2344 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
2345 more and more memory for certain programs.)
2347 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
2348 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
2350 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
2351 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
2353 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
2354 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
2355 in order not to need further allocation.)
2357 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
2360 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
2361 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
2362 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
2363 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
2365 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
2367 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
2370 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
2372 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
2375 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
2376 GC in percent of total heap size
2379 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
2380 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
2382 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
2384 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
2385 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
2387 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
2389 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
2390 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
2392 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
2394 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
2395 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
2399 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
2400 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
2402 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
2404 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2406 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
2408 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
2410 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
2412 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
2413 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
2415 (simple-format port message . args)
2416 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
2417 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
2418 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
2419 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
2420 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
2421 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
2422 Does not add a trailing newline."
2424 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
2426 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
2427 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
2429 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
2430 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
2432 ** Deprecated: list*
2434 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
2436 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
2438 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
2439 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
2441 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
2442 is returned as result.
2444 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
2446 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
2448 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
2450 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
2451 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
2454 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
2456 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
2458 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
2459 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
2461 * Changes to the gh_ interface
2463 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
2465 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
2467 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2469 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
2471 Thanks to Greg Badros!
2473 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2475 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2476 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
2477 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
2479 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
2482 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
2484 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
2485 the readability of argument checking.
2487 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
2489 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
2491 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
2493 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
2494 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
2495 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
2496 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
2497 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
2498 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
2499 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
2501 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
2503 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
2505 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
2506 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
2508 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
2510 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
2511 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
2514 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
2516 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
2517 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
2518 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
2520 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
2521 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
2522 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
2524 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
2525 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
2526 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
2527 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
2528 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
2529 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
2530 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
2532 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
2533 scm_end_input (object);
2534 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
2535 ptob->flush (object);
2537 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
2538 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
2541 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
2543 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
2545 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
2546 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
2547 removed in a future version.
2549 ** The format of error message strings has changed
2551 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
2552 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
2553 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
2554 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
2556 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
2557 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
2559 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
2562 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
2564 in your configure.in.
2566 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
2571 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
2577 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
2579 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
2583 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
2584 (define make-message string-append)
2586 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
2588 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
2592 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
2597 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
2601 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
2603 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
2604 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
2606 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
2608 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
2609 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
2610 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
2611 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
2612 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
2613 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
2615 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
2616 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
2617 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
2619 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
2620 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
2621 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
2624 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
2625 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
2626 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
2627 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
2628 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
2630 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
2631 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
2632 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
2633 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
2634 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
2635 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
2636 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
2638 Destructors are not yet implemented.
2640 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
2641 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
2642 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
2644 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
2645 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
2646 KEY in the calling thread.
2648 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
2649 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
2650 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
2651 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
2652 associated with the key.
2654 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
2656 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
2657 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
2659 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
2661 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
2662 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
2663 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
2665 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
2667 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
2668 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
2670 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
2672 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
2674 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
2675 returned is undefined.
2677 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
2678 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
2679 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
2681 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
2682 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
2683 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
2685 ** New C level GC hooks
2687 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
2689 scm_before_gc_c_hook
2692 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
2693 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
2694 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
2696 scm_before_mark_c_hook
2697 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
2698 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
2700 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
2701 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
2704 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
2706 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
2707 allocation parameters
2709 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
2710 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
2711 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
2715 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
2716 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
2717 scm_default_max_segment_size
2719 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
2721 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
2722 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
2724 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
2726 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
2727 object and count on the object being protected until
2728 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
2730 The functions also have better time complexity.
2732 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
2733 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
2734 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
2735 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
2736 are no longer needed.
2738 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
2740 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
2741 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
2742 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
2743 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
2745 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
2747 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
2749 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
2751 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
2752 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
2753 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
2754 until this issue has been settled.
2756 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
2758 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
2760 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
2763 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
2765 * Changes to system call interfaces:
2767 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
2768 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
2769 descriptors were checked.
2771 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
2772 atomically written to a pipe.
2774 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
2775 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
2776 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
2777 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
2778 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
2779 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
2780 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
2783 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
2784 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
2785 is changed without calling tzset.
2787 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
2789 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
2790 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
2791 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
2793 (define write-network-long
2794 (lambda (value port)
2795 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2796 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
2797 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
2799 (define read-network-long
2801 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2802 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
2803 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
2805 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
2806 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
2808 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
2809 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
2810 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
2811 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
2813 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
2814 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
2815 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
2816 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
2820 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
2822 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2826 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
2827 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
2828 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
2834 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
2835 for a description of available commands.
2837 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
2838 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
2839 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
2841 (debug-enable 'backwards)
2843 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
2844 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
2846 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
2848 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
2850 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
2851 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
2852 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
2853 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
2854 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
2855 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
2858 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
2860 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
2861 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
2862 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
2863 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
2865 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
2866 the file and should not be affected by this change.
2868 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
2870 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2872 ** Readline support has changed again.
2874 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
2875 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
2876 to activate readline is now
2878 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
2881 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
2883 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
2884 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
2885 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
2888 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
2889 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
2890 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
2893 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
2894 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
2895 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
2896 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
2897 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
2898 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
2900 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
2901 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
2903 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
2905 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
2906 object it receives is the same string passed to
2907 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
2908 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
2909 string, not the suffix.
2911 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
2912 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
2913 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
2915 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
2917 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
2918 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
2919 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
2920 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
2923 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2925 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
2927 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
2928 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
2929 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
2930 appear from left to right.
2932 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
2935 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
2937 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
2938 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
2940 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2944 *** New function: hook? OBJ
2946 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
2948 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
2950 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
2951 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
2952 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
2954 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
2956 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
2958 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
2960 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
2963 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
2965 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
2966 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
2967 mentioning it here anyway.
2969 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
2971 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
2972 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
2973 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
2974 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
2977 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
2979 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
2981 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
2983 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
2984 otherwise return #f.
2986 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
2988 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
2989 returned by `opendir'.
2991 ** New function: using-readline?
2993 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
2995 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
2997 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
2998 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3000 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3002 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3004 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
3005 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
3006 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3008 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
3010 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
3011 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
3013 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
3015 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
3016 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
3017 documentation slots are not yet used.
3019 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
3021 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
3022 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
3023 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
3028 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
3029 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
3030 (string-append x y))
3032 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
3033 can also be used for concatenating strings.
3035 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
3036 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
3037 be made in a clean way.]
3039 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
3041 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3043 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3045 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
3046 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
3048 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3050 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
3052 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3054 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3056 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
3057 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
3058 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
3059 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
3062 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3064 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
3066 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3068 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3070 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
3071 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
3073 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3075 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
3077 Evaluates the body of a special form.
3079 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
3081 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
3082 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
3083 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
3084 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
3085 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
3086 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
3088 This should not make any difference for most users.
3090 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
3092 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
3093 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
3095 *** New functions for applying generic functions
3097 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
3098 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
3099 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
3100 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
3101 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
3103 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
3105 It is now replaced by:
3107 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
3109 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3110 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3112 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3114 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
3115 This might change when we get the new module system.
3117 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
3121 Changes since Guile 1.3:
3123 * Changes to mailing lists
3125 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
3127 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
3130 * Changes to the distribution
3132 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
3134 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
3135 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
3136 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
3137 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
3138 you explicitly specify it.
3140 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
3141 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
3142 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
3143 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
3144 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
3147 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
3148 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
3149 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
3150 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
3152 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
3153 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
3154 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
3157 You can activate the readline support by issuing
3159 (use-modules (readline-activator))
3162 from your ".guile" file, for example.
3164 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3166 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
3167 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
3168 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
3169 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
3171 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
3172 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
3175 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3177 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
3178 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
3179 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
3180 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
3181 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
3182 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
3183 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
3184 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
3196 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
3197 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
3198 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
3199 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
3200 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
3205 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
3206 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
3214 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
3219 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
3220 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
3223 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
3224 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
3225 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
3226 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
3228 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
3230 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
3232 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
3233 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
3235 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
3237 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
3239 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
3240 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
3242 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
3245 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
3247 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
3249 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
3251 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
3253 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
3255 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
3257 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
3258 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
3259 when the hook was created.
3261 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
3262 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
3263 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
3264 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
3265 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
3266 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
3267 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
3268 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
3269 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
3271 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
3272 the dlopen family of functions.
3274 ** New function `provided?'
3276 - Function: provided? FEATURE
3277 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
3278 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
3279 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
3281 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
3283 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
3284 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
3285 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
3286 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3289 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3290 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
3291 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
3292 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
3294 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
3295 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
3296 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
3299 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
3300 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
3301 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
3302 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
3303 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
3304 but with the flag set.
3306 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
3308 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
3309 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
3311 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
3312 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
3313 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
3314 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
3315 available Scheme format implementations.
3317 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
3318 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
3319 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
3320 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
3321 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
3322 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
3323 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
3324 output is to the current error port if available by the
3325 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
3328 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
3329 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
3330 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
3331 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
3332 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
3333 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
3334 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
3335 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
3337 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
3338 be executed at a time.
3341 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
3343 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
3344 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
3345 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
3347 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
3348 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
3349 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
3350 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
3351 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
3352 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
3353 general form of a directive is:
3355 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
3357 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
3359 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3361 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
3362 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
3363 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
3366 Any (print as `display' does).
3370 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
3374 S-expression (print as `write' does).
3378 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
3384 print number sign always.
3387 print comma separated.
3389 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
3395 print number sign always.
3398 print comma separated.
3400 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
3406 print number sign always.
3409 print comma separated.
3411 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
3417 print number sign always.
3420 print comma separated.
3422 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
3427 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
3431 print a number as a Roman numeral.
3434 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
3437 print a number as an ordinal English number.
3440 print a number as a cardinal English number.
3445 prints `y' and `ies'.
3448 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3451 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3456 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
3460 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
3463 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
3464 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
3466 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3469 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
3470 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
3472 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3475 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
3477 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
3479 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3482 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
3484 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
3486 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3489 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
3492 The sign appears before the padding.
3500 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
3502 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
3507 print N page separators.
3517 newline is ignored, white space left.
3520 newline is left, white space ignored.
3525 relative tabulation.
3531 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
3533 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
3536 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
3538 converts by `string-capitalize'.
3541 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
3544 converts by `string-upcase'.
3547 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
3549 jumps N arguments forward.
3552 jumps 1 argument backward.
3555 jumps N arguments backward.
3558 jumps to the 0th argument.
3561 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
3563 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
3564 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
3566 take argument from N.
3569 true test conditional.
3572 if-else-then conditional.
3578 default clause follows.
3581 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
3583 at most N iterations.
3586 args from next arg (a list of lists).
3589 args from the rest of arguments.
3592 args from the rest args (lists).
3603 aborts if N <= M <= K
3605 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3608 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3611 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3617 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
3619 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
3621 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
3622 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
3623 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
3624 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
3625 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
3626 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
3630 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
3634 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
3640 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
3643 Print a `#\space' character
3645 print N `#\space' characters.
3648 Print a `#\tab' character
3650 print N `#\tab' characters.
3653 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
3654 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
3655 must be a positive decimal number.
3658 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3659 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3660 be processed by `read'.
3663 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3664 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3665 be processed by `read'.
3668 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
3671 prints format version.
3674 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
3675 and format it accordingly.
3677 *** Configuration Variables
3679 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
3680 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
3681 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
3682 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
3685 format:symbol-case-conv
3686 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
3687 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
3688 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
3689 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
3690 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
3692 format:iobj-case-conv
3693 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
3694 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
3697 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
3700 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
3706 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
3707 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
3708 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
3709 `format' padding style.
3712 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
3713 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
3714 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
3715 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
3719 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
3720 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
3721 directive parameters or modifiers)).
3724 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
3725 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
3726 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
3727 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
3728 parameters or modifiers)).
3731 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
3733 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
3735 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
3736 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
3738 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
3739 string-downcase! functions.
3741 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
3742 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
3744 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
3747 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
3750 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
3751 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
3753 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
3755 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
3756 the symbol had be read by `read'.
3758 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
3759 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
3760 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
3761 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
3762 would if STRING were input.
3764 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
3766 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
3767 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
3768 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
3769 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
3772 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
3774 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
3775 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
3778 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
3780 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
3781 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
3783 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
3784 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
3786 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
3787 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
3788 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
3789 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
3791 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
3792 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
3794 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
3795 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
3796 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
3798 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
3799 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
3801 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
3802 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
3803 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
3804 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
3805 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
3807 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
3808 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
3809 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
3810 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
3811 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
3812 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
3814 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
3815 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
3816 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
3819 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
3820 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
3821 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
3822 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
3823 the following grammar:
3824 ((apples (single-char #\a))
3825 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
3826 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
3827 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
3828 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
3829 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
3830 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
3831 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
3832 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
3833 last option in its combination)
3835 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
3836 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
3837 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
3838 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
3840 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
3841 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
3842 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
3844 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3845 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3846 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
3848 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
3849 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
3850 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
3851 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
3852 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
3853 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
3854 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
3855 ordinary argument strings.
3857 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
3858 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
3859 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
3860 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
3862 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
3863 as a list, associated with the empty list.
3865 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
3866 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
3867 - a required option is omitted
3868 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
3869 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
3870 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
3871 - an option predicate fails
3876 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
3879 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
3880 (verbose (required? #f)
3883 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
3884 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
3885 (predicate ,string?))))
3887 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
3888 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3890 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3891 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
3892 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
3893 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
3896 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
3898 It will be removed in a few releases.
3900 ** New syntax: lambda*
3901 ** New syntax: define*
3902 ** New syntax: define*-public
3903 ** New syntax: defmacro*
3904 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
3905 Guile now supports optional arguments.
3907 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
3908 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
3909 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
3910 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
3911 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
3913 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
3914 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
3915 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
3917 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
3919 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
3920 and examples for `lambda*':
3923 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
3925 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
3926 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
3927 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
3928 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
3929 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
3930 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
3931 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
3932 can be checked with the bound? macro.
3934 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
3936 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
3937 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
3938 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
3939 are given as keywords are bound to values.
3941 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
3942 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
3943 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
3944 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
3945 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
3946 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
3947 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
3948 and until the procedure is called.
3950 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
3952 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
3953 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
3954 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
3955 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
3956 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
3957 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
3958 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
3959 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
3960 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
3961 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
3963 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
3964 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
3965 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
3966 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
3969 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
3971 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
3972 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
3973 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
3974 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
3976 ** New syntax: and-let*
3977 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
3979 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
3980 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
3981 (<variable> <expression>)
3984 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
3985 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
3986 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
3989 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
3990 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
3991 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
3992 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
3993 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
3994 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
3995 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
3997 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
3998 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
3999 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
4000 shadow earlier bindings.
4002 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
4004 ** New sorting functions
4006 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
4007 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
4008 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
4009 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
4011 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
4012 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
4015 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4016 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
4017 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
4019 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
4020 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
4021 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
4022 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
4024 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4025 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
4026 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
4027 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
4028 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
4031 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4032 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
4033 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
4034 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
4035 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
4036 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
4038 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
4039 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
4040 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
4042 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4043 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
4044 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
4047 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
4048 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
4049 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
4051 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
4052 Added for compatibility with scsh.
4054 ** New built-in random number support
4056 *** New function: random N [STATE]
4057 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
4058 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
4059 returned have a uniform distribution.
4061 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
4062 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
4063 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
4064 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
4065 effect of the `random' operation.
4067 *** New variable: *random-state*
4068 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
4069 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
4070 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
4071 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
4072 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
4075 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
4076 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4077 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4078 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
4079 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
4081 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
4082 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4083 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4084 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
4085 initialized using SEED.
4087 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
4088 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
4089 range between 0 and 1.
4091 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4092 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
4093 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
4094 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
4095 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
4096 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
4097 or a uniform vector of doubles.
4099 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4100 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
4101 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
4102 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
4103 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
4104 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4106 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
4107 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
4108 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
4109 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
4111 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
4112 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
4113 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
4114 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4116 *** New function: random:exp STATE
4117 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
4118 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
4120 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
4122 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
4125 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
4126 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
4129 ** New function: make-guardian
4130 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
4131 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
4132 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
4133 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
4134 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
4136 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
4137 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
4138 one object if at all.
4140 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
4141 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
4142 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
4144 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
4145 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
4146 read again in last-in first-out order.
4148 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
4149 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
4151 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
4153 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
4154 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
4155 file position is used.
4157 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
4158 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
4159 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
4161 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
4162 redefined using seek.
4164 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
4165 size is not supplied.
4167 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
4168 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
4170 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
4171 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
4173 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
4175 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
4176 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
4177 and returns the contents as a single string.
4179 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
4180 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
4181 lists in serial order.
4183 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
4184 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
4185 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
4187 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
4188 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
4189 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
4190 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
4192 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
4193 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
4194 and #f if an error occured.
4196 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
4198 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
4199 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
4200 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
4201 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
4203 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
4205 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
4208 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
4210 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
4213 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4217 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
4218 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
4220 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
4221 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
4225 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4227 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
4229 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
4230 binds a variable named NAME to it.
4232 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
4234 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
4235 might change when we get the new module system.
4237 ** The smob interface
4239 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
4240 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
4242 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
4244 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
4248 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
4249 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
4250 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
4251 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
4252 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
4253 will be freed by the default free function.
4255 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4256 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
4257 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4258 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4260 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4261 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
4262 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4263 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4265 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
4267 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
4268 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
4272 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
4273 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4274 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4276 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
4277 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
4278 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4279 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4281 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
4282 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
4283 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
4285 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
4286 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
4287 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
4288 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
4290 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
4291 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
4292 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
4294 *** scm_newptob has been removed
4298 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
4300 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
4301 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
4302 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
4304 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
4305 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
4306 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
4308 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
4309 a string port's buffer.
4311 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
4312 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
4313 function pointers which together define the current random number
4314 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
4315 number library functions.
4317 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
4320 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
4321 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
4324 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
4325 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4327 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
4328 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
4330 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
4331 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
4334 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
4335 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
4336 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
4337 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
4339 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
4340 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
4341 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
4342 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
4343 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
4344 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
4345 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
4347 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
4348 by libguile and the application.
4350 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4351 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4352 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
4353 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
4355 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
4356 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
4358 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4359 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
4360 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
4362 ** Random number library functions
4363 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
4364 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
4365 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
4367 The default random state is stored in:
4369 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
4370 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
4371 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
4376 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
4378 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
4379 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
4380 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
4381 isn't a random state.
4383 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
4384 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
4386 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
4387 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
4388 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
4389 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
4391 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4392 Return 32 random bits.
4394 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4395 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
4397 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4398 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
4400 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4401 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
4403 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
4404 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4406 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
4407 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4408 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
4412 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
4414 * Changes to the distribution
4416 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
4417 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
4418 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
4421 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
4422 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
4423 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
4425 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
4426 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
4427 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
4428 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
4431 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
4432 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
4433 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
4435 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4437 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
4439 *** Function: batch-mode?
4441 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
4444 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
4446 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
4447 case has not been implemented.
4449 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
4450 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
4451 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
4454 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
4455 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
4457 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
4459 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4461 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
4463 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
4464 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
4467 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
4468 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
4469 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
4470 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
4473 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
4475 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
4476 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
4477 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
4478 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
4479 find those libraries.
4481 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
4482 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
4485 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
4487 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
4488 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
4489 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
4490 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
4492 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
4493 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
4494 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
4498 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
4500 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
4501 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
4502 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
4505 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
4506 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
4507 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
4508 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
4510 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
4511 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
4514 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
4515 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
4516 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
4517 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
4518 compiler where to find the libraries.
4520 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
4521 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
4522 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
4524 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
4525 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
4526 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
4527 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
4528 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
4532 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4534 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
4535 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
4536 internationalization support.
4538 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
4539 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
4540 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
4541 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
4542 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
4544 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
4545 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
4546 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
4547 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
4548 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
4550 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
4551 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
4552 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
4553 any GNU mirror site.
4555 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
4557 ** New function: add-history STRING
4558 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
4559 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
4560 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
4562 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
4564 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
4565 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
4566 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
4569 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
4570 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
4571 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
4573 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
4575 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
4578 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
4579 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
4582 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
4583 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
4584 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
4585 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
4586 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
4587 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
4589 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
4590 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
4591 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
4592 of the form mentioned above.
4594 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
4595 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
4596 returned in the special `rest' list.
4598 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
4599 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
4601 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
4603 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
4605 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
4607 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
4608 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
4609 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
4610 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
4611 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
4612 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
4613 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
4614 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
4617 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
4619 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
4621 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
4622 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
4625 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
4626 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
4627 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
4631 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
4632 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
4633 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
4634 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
4635 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
4636 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
4637 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
4638 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
4641 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
4643 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
4644 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
4645 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
4647 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
4649 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
4650 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
4652 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
4653 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
4654 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
4656 Why do we have this function?
4657 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
4658 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
4659 primitive, and display it differently, and
4660 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
4661 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
4664 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
4665 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
4668 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
4669 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
4670 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
4671 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
4673 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
4674 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
4677 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
4678 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
4680 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
4682 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
4683 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
4684 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
4685 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
4686 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
4687 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
4688 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
4691 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
4693 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
4694 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
4696 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
4697 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
4698 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
4699 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
4700 properly continue the print chain.
4702 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
4703 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
4704 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
4705 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
4706 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
4707 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
4708 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
4709 print-state, it is simply ignored.
4711 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
4712 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
4713 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
4714 safest to not check for these pairs.
4716 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
4717 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
4718 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
4719 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
4721 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
4723 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
4724 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
4726 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
4728 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
4730 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
4731 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
4732 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
4734 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
4735 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
4736 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
4738 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
4739 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
4740 the following functions and macros:
4742 Function: make-fluid
4744 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
4745 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
4746 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
4747 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
4748 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
4750 Function: fluid? OBJ
4752 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
4754 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
4755 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
4757 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
4758 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
4760 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
4762 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
4763 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
4764 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
4765 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
4766 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
4767 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
4768 modified by `with-fluids*'.
4770 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
4772 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
4773 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
4774 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
4775 should evaluate to a fluid.
4777 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
4779 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
4780 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
4781 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
4782 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
4783 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
4785 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
4788 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
4790 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
4792 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
4794 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
4797 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
4798 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
4799 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
4800 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
4801 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
4804 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
4805 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
4806 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
4808 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
4809 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
4810 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
4812 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
4813 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
4814 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4815 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
4817 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
4818 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
4819 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4820 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
4822 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
4823 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
4824 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
4825 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
4827 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
4828 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
4829 their revealed counts set to zero.
4831 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4832 Returns an integer file descriptor.
4834 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4835 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
4837 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4838 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
4840 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4841 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
4842 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
4844 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
4845 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
4846 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
4848 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
4849 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
4850 default environment inherited by child processes.
4852 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
4853 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
4854 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
4856 The return value is unspecified.
4858 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
4859 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
4860 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
4861 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
4862 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
4864 The return value is unspecified.
4866 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
4867 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
4875 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
4876 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
4879 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
4882 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
4883 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
4884 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
4886 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
4887 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
4888 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
4889 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
4892 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
4893 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
4895 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
4896 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
4897 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
4898 the `environ' procedure.
4900 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
4901 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
4904 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
4905 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
4907 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
4908 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
4909 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
4910 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
4912 *** procedure: times
4913 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
4914 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
4915 return a selected component:
4918 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
4922 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
4925 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
4929 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
4930 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
4934 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
4935 terminated child processes.
4937 ** Removed: list-length
4938 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
4939 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
4941 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
4943 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
4945 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
4947 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
4948 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
4949 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
4950 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
4952 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
4953 extra complexity it introduces.
4955 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
4956 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
4958 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
4959 variable to any non-empty value.
4961 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
4962 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
4964 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4966 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
4967 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
4969 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
4971 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
4972 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
4974 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
4976 ** vector handling routines
4978 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
4979 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
4980 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
4981 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
4982 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
4984 ** pair and list routines
4986 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
4989 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
4991 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
4994 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4996 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
4998 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
4999 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
5000 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
5001 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
5002 site-specific initialization code.
5004 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
5005 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
5006 initialization processes.
5008 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
5009 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
5010 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
5011 initialized properly.
5013 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
5014 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
5015 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
5017 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
5018 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
5019 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
5020 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
5021 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
5023 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
5025 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
5026 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
5027 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
5028 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
5029 objects the smob refers to get marked.
5031 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
5032 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
5033 which look like this:
5036 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
5038 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
5039 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
5042 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
5043 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
5046 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
5048 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
5049 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
5050 you will need to change your functions slightly.
5052 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
5053 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
5054 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
5055 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
5056 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
5058 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
5059 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
5061 int (*free) (SCM port);
5062 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
5063 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
5064 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
5068 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
5069 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
5070 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
5072 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
5075 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
5076 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
5077 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
5079 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
5080 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
5081 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
5084 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
5088 struct timeval *timeout);
5090 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
5091 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
5092 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
5093 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
5094 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
5095 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
5097 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
5098 scm_catch_body_t body,
5100 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5103 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
5104 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
5105 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
5106 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
5107 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
5108 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
5110 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
5112 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5115 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
5116 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
5117 spawning threads from application C code.
5119 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
5120 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
5121 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
5122 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
5123 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
5124 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
5126 ** Removed functions:
5128 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
5129 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
5131 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
5133 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
5134 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
5136 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
5138 ** mbstrings are now removed
5140 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
5141 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
5143 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
5145 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
5146 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
5147 their new names and arguments:
5149 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
5150 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
5151 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
5152 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
5155 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
5157 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
5159 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
5162 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
5164 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
5165 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
5166 pass a #f arg to catch.
5168 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
5170 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
5171 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
5174 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
5175 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
5176 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
5177 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
5178 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
5179 reclaim its storage.
5181 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
5182 worrying that some other function you call will call
5183 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
5184 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
5185 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
5186 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
5189 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
5191 * Changes to the distribution
5193 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
5194 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
5197 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
5198 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
5200 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5201 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5203 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
5205 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
5206 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
5207 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
5209 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5211 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
5212 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
5213 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
5214 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
5215 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
5216 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
5218 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
5219 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
5220 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
5223 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
5224 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
5225 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
5226 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
5228 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
5229 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
5230 libraries to your link command:
5232 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
5233 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
5234 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5235 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5237 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
5238 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
5239 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
5241 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5243 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
5244 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
5247 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
5249 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
5250 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
5251 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
5252 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
5253 searched is system dependent.
5255 (dynamic-object? VAL)
5257 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
5259 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
5261 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
5262 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
5264 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5266 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
5267 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
5268 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
5269 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
5270 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
5273 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5275 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
5276 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
5277 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
5278 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
5279 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
5281 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
5283 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
5284 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
5286 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
5288 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
5289 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
5290 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
5293 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
5295 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
5296 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
5297 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
5298 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
5300 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
5301 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
5303 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
5305 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
5306 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
5308 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
5310 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
5311 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
5319 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
5321 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
5322 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
5323 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
5324 a more informative way.
5326 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
5327 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
5328 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
5329 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
5330 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
5331 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
5333 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
5334 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
5337 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
5338 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
5339 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
5342 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
5343 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
5344 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
5345 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
5346 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
5347 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
5349 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
5350 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
5351 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
5352 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
5355 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
5356 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
5357 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
5358 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
5359 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
5360 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
5362 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
5363 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
5364 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
5365 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
5366 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
5368 *** regexp functions
5370 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
5371 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
5372 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
5374 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
5375 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
5376 with SCSH regular expressions.
5378 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
5379 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
5380 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
5381 position of STR at which to begin matching.
5383 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
5384 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
5385 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
5386 `string-match' returns `#f'.
5388 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
5389 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
5390 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
5391 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
5392 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
5393 match strings against the compiled regexp.
5395 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
5396 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
5397 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
5398 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
5399 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
5401 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5403 **** Constant: regexp/extended
5404 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
5405 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
5406 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
5408 **** Constant: regexp/icase
5409 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
5410 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
5412 **** Constant: regexp/newline
5413 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
5415 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
5418 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
5419 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5420 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
5422 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
5423 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5424 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
5426 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
5427 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
5428 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
5429 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
5430 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
5433 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5435 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
5436 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
5437 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
5438 used when different portions of a string are passed to
5439 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
5440 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
5442 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
5443 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
5444 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
5446 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
5447 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
5450 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
5451 and replace them with the contents of another string.
5453 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
5454 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
5455 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
5456 may be one of the following arguments:
5458 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
5460 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
5462 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
5463 the regexp match is written.
5465 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
5466 following the regexp match is written.
5468 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
5469 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
5472 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
5473 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
5474 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
5475 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
5476 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
5477 which should be matched against this regular expression.
5479 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
5482 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
5483 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
5484 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
5485 written out to PORT.
5487 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
5488 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
5489 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
5490 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
5491 will return after processing a single match.
5493 *** Match Structures
5495 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
5496 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
5497 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
5498 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
5499 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
5500 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
5503 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
5504 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
5505 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
5506 information about the original target string that was matched against a
5507 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
5509 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
5510 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
5511 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
5513 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
5514 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
5515 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
5516 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
5517 number N did not match, return `#f'.
5519 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
5520 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
5522 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
5523 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
5525 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
5526 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
5528 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
5529 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
5531 **** Function: match:count MATCH
5532 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
5533 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
5534 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
5536 **** Function: match:string MATCH
5537 Return the original TARGET string.
5539 *** Backslash Escapes
5541 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
5542 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
5543 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
5544 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
5545 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
5546 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
5548 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
5549 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
5550 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
5551 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
5552 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
5553 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
5554 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
5555 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
5557 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
5558 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
5559 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
5560 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
5561 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
5562 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
5563 each match a single backslash in the target string.
5565 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
5566 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
5567 return the resulting string.
5569 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
5570 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
5571 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
5572 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
5573 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
5574 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
5575 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
5576 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
5577 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
5578 translated to the single character `*'.
5580 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
5581 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
5582 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
5583 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
5584 consecutive backslashes:
5586 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
5588 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
5589 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
5590 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
5592 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
5593 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
5594 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
5595 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
5596 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
5597 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
5599 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
5601 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
5602 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
5603 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
5604 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
5605 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
5606 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
5607 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
5608 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
5609 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
5610 cumbersome escape syntax.
5612 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5614 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5616 * Changes to system call interfaces:
5618 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
5621 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
5623 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
5625 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
5628 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
5629 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
5630 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
5631 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
5632 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
5634 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
5635 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
5636 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
5637 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
5638 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
5639 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
5640 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
5643 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
5644 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
5645 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
5648 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
5649 `force-output' on every port open for output.
5651 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
5652 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
5653 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
5654 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
5655 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
5656 installed, you can say:
5658 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
5661 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5663 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
5664 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
5665 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
5666 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
5667 new dynamic roots and threads.
5670 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
5672 * Changes to the distribution.
5674 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
5676 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
5677 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
5678 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
5679 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
5680 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
5681 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
5682 programming language. These are packaged together because the
5683 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
5685 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
5688 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
5689 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
5694 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5696 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
5697 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
5699 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
5700 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
5701 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
5702 the (command-line) function.
5703 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
5704 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
5705 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
5707 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
5708 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
5709 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
5710 command line arguments
5711 -ds do -s script at this point
5712 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
5713 -h, --help display this help and exit
5714 -v, --version display version information and exit
5715 \ read arguments from following script lines
5717 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
5718 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
5720 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5723 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5727 (main (command-line))
5729 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
5731 ekko a speckled gecko
5733 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
5734 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
5735 following list of command-line arguments:
5737 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
5739 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
5740 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
5741 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
5742 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
5743 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5745 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
5747 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
5749 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
5750 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
5753 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
5754 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
5755 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
5756 SCSH) for circumventing them.
5758 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
5759 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
5760 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
5761 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
5763 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
5767 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5771 If the user invokes this script as follows:
5773 ekko a speckled gecko
5775 Unix expands this into
5777 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
5779 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
5780 read from the second line of the script, producing:
5782 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
5784 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
5785 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5787 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
5788 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
5789 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
5790 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
5791 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
5792 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
5793 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
5794 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
5795 it only terminates the argument list.)
5796 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
5797 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
5798 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
5799 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
5800 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
5801 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
5802 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
5803 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
5805 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5807 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
5808 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
5809 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
5810 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
5811 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
5813 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
5814 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
5815 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
5817 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
5819 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
5820 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
5821 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
5822 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
5825 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
5826 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5827 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5829 * Changes to Scheme functions
5831 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
5832 and disabled by default.
5834 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
5835 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
5836 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
5837 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
5839 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
5841 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
5843 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
5844 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
5846 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
5847 (read-set! keywords #f)
5849 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
5850 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
5851 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
5854 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
5855 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
5856 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
5859 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
5860 support for Scheme functions.
5862 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5863 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
5864 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
5865 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
5868 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5869 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
5870 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
5873 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
5874 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
5875 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
5878 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
5879 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
5880 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
5881 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
5882 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
5883 display the result as a prompt.
5884 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
5886 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
5887 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
5888 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
5891 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
5892 procedure of zero arguments.
5894 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
5895 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
5896 argument is bound in the current module.
5898 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
5899 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
5900 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
5901 public bindings into the current module.
5903 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
5904 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
5906 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
5907 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
5909 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
5910 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
5912 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
5913 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
5915 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
5916 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
5918 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
5919 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
5920 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
5921 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
5922 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
5924 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
5925 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
5926 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
5927 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
5929 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
5932 ** Changes to I/O functions
5934 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
5935 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
5936 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
5938 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
5939 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
5940 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
5942 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
5943 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
5945 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
5946 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
5947 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
5948 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
5950 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
5952 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
5953 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
5955 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
5956 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
5957 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
5958 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
5959 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
5962 'trim omit delimiter from result
5963 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
5964 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
5965 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
5967 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
5969 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
5970 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
5972 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
5973 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
5974 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
5975 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
5976 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
5978 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
5979 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
5980 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
5982 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
5983 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
5984 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
5985 above, and defaults to 'peek.
5987 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
5988 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
5990 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
5991 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
5993 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
5995 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
5996 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
5997 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
5998 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
5999 a delimiting character.
6000 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
6002 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
6003 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
6004 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
6005 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
6006 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
6007 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
6009 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
6010 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6012 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
6013 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
6014 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
6016 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
6017 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
6018 the array to read and write.
6020 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
6021 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
6024 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
6026 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
6029 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
6030 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
6031 Values for COMMAND are:
6033 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
6034 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
6035 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
6036 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
6037 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
6038 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
6039 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
6040 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
6042 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
6044 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
6045 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
6046 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
6047 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
6048 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
6049 corresponding return set will be the same.
6051 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
6054 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
6055 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
6056 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
6057 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
6058 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
6059 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
6060 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
6061 special file being created.
6063 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
6064 clashing with various SCSH forks.
6066 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
6067 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
6068 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
6069 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
6070 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
6071 and originating address.
6073 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
6074 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
6075 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
6077 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
6080 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
6081 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
6084 (status:exit-val STATUS)
6085 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
6086 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
6087 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
6088 this function returns #f.
6090 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
6091 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
6092 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
6095 (status:term-sig STATUS)
6096 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
6097 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
6100 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
6101 a valid STATUS value.
6103 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
6105 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
6106 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
6108 Component Accessor Setter
6109 ========================= ============ ============
6110 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
6111 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
6112 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
6113 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
6114 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
6115 year tm:year set-tm:year
6116 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
6117 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
6118 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
6119 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
6120 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
6122 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
6123 describing the host system:
6126 ============================================== ================
6127 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
6128 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
6129 release level of the operating system utsname:release
6130 version level of the operating system utsname:version
6131 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
6133 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
6134 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
6135 system's user database:
6138 ====================== =================
6139 user name passwd:name
6140 user password passwd:passwd
6143 real name passwd:gecos
6144 home directory passwd:dir
6145 shell program passwd:shell
6147 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
6148 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
6149 system's group database:
6152 ======================= ============
6153 group name group:name
6154 group password group:passwd
6156 group members group:mem
6158 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
6159 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
6163 ========================= ===============
6164 official name of host hostent:name
6165 alias list hostent:aliases
6166 host address type hostent:addrtype
6167 length of address hostent:length
6168 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
6170 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
6171 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
6175 ========================= ===============
6176 official name of net netent:name
6177 alias list netent:aliases
6178 net number type netent:addrtype
6179 net number netent:net
6181 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
6182 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
6186 ========================= ===============
6187 official protocol name protoent:name
6188 alias list protoent:aliases
6189 protocol number protoent:proto
6191 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
6192 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
6196 ========================= ===============
6197 official service name servent:name
6198 alias list servent:aliases
6199 port number servent:port
6200 protocol to use servent:proto
6202 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
6203 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
6206 ======================================== ===============
6207 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
6208 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
6209 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
6210 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
6212 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
6213 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
6214 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
6216 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
6217 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
6219 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
6220 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
6222 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
6223 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
6225 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
6227 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
6229 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
6230 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
6231 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
6233 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
6234 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
6235 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
6236 return the remaining characters as a string.
6238 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
6239 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
6240 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
6242 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
6244 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6246 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
6249 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
6252 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
6253 and returns the array
6255 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
6256 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
6257 the user to interpret the data both ways.
6259 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6261 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
6262 symbol's value from C code:
6264 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
6265 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
6266 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
6267 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
6269 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
6270 without assigning them a value.
6272 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
6273 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
6274 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
6276 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
6277 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
6278 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
6280 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
6281 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
6283 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
6284 doesn't actually care about that.
6286 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
6287 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
6288 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
6290 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
6291 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
6292 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
6293 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
6294 which we have just created and initialized.
6296 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
6297 should one occur. We call it like this:
6298 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
6300 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
6301 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
6302 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
6303 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
6304 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
6305 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
6308 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
6309 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
6310 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
6311 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
6312 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
6313 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
6314 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
6317 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
6318 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
6319 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
6320 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
6321 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
6324 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
6325 scm_internal_catch, except:
6327 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
6328 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
6329 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
6330 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
6333 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
6334 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
6335 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
6337 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
6338 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
6339 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
6340 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
6343 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
6344 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
6345 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
6347 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
6348 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
6349 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
6350 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
6351 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
6353 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
6354 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
6355 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
6357 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
6358 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
6359 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
6361 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
6362 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
6364 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
6365 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
6366 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
6369 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
6370 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
6371 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
6372 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
6373 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
6374 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
6375 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
6378 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
6379 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
6381 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
6382 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
6383 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
6384 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
6385 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
6388 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
6389 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
6391 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
6392 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
6395 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
6396 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
6398 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6401 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
6402 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
6403 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
6404 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
6405 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
6406 given the following arguments:
6408 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6410 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
6412 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
6414 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6417 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
6418 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
6419 command-line arguments.
6421 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
6422 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
6423 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
6424 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
6425 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
6426 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
6429 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6432 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
6433 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
6435 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
6436 rearranged slightly. They are now:
6438 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6439 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6440 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
6441 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
6443 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6444 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6446 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6447 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
6448 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6449 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
6451 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6452 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6454 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
6455 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
6457 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
6459 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
6460 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
6461 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
6464 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
6465 returns a port instead of an FD object.
6467 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
6468 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
6473 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
6476 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
6478 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
6479 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
6480 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
6481 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
6483 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
6485 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
6487 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
6488 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
6489 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
6490 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
6491 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
6492 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
6493 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
6494 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
6495 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
6496 for more information.
6498 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
6499 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
6501 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
6502 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
6503 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
6504 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
6505 following two lines at the top of the file:
6507 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6510 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
6511 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
6512 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
6514 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
6516 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6518 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
6521 (display (car args))
6522 (if (pair? (cdr args))
6524 (loop (cdr args)))))
6527 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
6528 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
6529 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
6530 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
6531 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
6532 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
6536 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
6539 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
6542 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
6544 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
6545 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
6546 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
6547 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
6548 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
6551 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
6552 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
6553 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
6554 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
6555 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
6558 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
6561 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
6562 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
6563 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
6566 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
6567 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
6568 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
6570 to see a backtrace, and
6571 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
6572 to see them by default.
6576 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
6578 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
6580 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
6581 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
6584 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
6585 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
6586 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
6587 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
6590 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
6591 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
6592 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
6593 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
6594 functions which inspired them.
6596 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
6597 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
6601 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
6603 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
6605 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
6606 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
6609 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
6610 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
6611 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
6613 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
6614 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
6615 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
6616 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
6617 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
6619 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
6621 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
6622 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
6623 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
6626 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
6629 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
6631 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
6632 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
6633 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
6634 above should serve their purposes.
6636 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
6637 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
6638 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
6639 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
6641 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
6644 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
6645 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
6646 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
6647 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
6649 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
6650 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
6651 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
6652 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
6654 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
6655 for the `read' function.
6658 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
6659 to that of `integer?'.
6661 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
6662 use the R4RS names for these functions.
6664 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
6665 it simply returns the object's property list.
6667 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
6668 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
6669 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
6670 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
6672 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
6674 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
6677 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
6679 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
6680 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
6682 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
6684 void (*main_func) (),
6687 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
6688 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
6689 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
6690 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
6691 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
6693 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
6694 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
6695 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
6696 know which arguments have been processed.
6698 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
6699 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
6700 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
6701 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
6702 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
6704 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
6705 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
6706 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
6707 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
6708 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
6709 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
6710 people from making that mistake.
6712 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
6713 convenient ways to override these when desired.
6715 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
6717 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
6721 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
6724 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
6725 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
6726 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
6727 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
6730 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
6731 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
6732 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
6733 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
6736 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
6737 have been added to the Guile library.
6739 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
6740 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
6741 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
6744 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
6745 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
6746 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
6748 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
6749 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
6750 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
6751 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
6752 argument from the list.
6755 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
6758 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
6759 null-terminated string, and returns it.
6761 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
6762 to a Scheme port object.
6764 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
6765 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
6770 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
6772 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
6773 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
6774 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
6775 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
6776 code as a special datatype.
6778 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
6779 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
6780 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
6781 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
6782 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
6785 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
6786 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
6787 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
6788 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
6789 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
6791 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
6794 Copyright information:
6796 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6798 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
6799 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
6800 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
6801 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
6803 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
6804 of this document, or of portions of it,
6805 under the above conditions, provided also that they
6806 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
6811 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"