1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
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12 * New modules (see the manual for details)
14 ** The `(ice-9 i18n)' module provides internationalization support
16 * Changes to the distribution
18 ** Guile now uses Gnulib as a portability aid
20 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
21 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
23 ** A new 'memoize-symbol evaluator trap has been added. This trap can
24 be used for efficiently implementing a Scheme code coverage.
26 ** Duplicate bindings among used modules are resolved lazily.
27 This slightly improves program startup times.
29 ** New thread cancellation and thread cleanup API
30 See `cancel-thread', `set-thread-cleanup!', and `thread-cleanup'.
32 * Changes to the C interface
34 ** Functions for handling `scm_option' now no longer require an argument
35 indicating length of the `scm_t_option' array.
39 Changes in 1.8.5 (since 1.8.4)
41 * Infrastructure changes
43 ** Guile repository switched from CVS to Git
45 The new repository can be accessed using
46 "git-clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/guile.git", or can be browsed on-line at
47 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=guile.git . See `README' for details.
49 * New modules (see the manual for details)
53 * New features (see the manual for details)
55 ** New `postfix' read option, for SRFI-88 keyword syntax
56 ** Some I/O primitives have been inlined, which improves I/O performance
60 ** `scm_add_slot ()' no longer segfaults (fixes bug #22369)
61 ** Fixed `(ice-9 match)' for patterns like `((_ ...) ...)'
63 Previously, expressions like `(match '((foo) (bar)) (((_ ...) ...) #t))'
64 would trigger an unbound variable error for `match:andmap'.
66 ** `(oop goops describe)' now properly provides the `describe' feature
67 ** Fixed `args-fold' from `(srfi srfi-37)'
69 Previously, parsing short option names of argument-less options would
70 lead to a stack overflow.
72 ** Fixed type-checking for the second argument of `eval'
73 ** Fixed `struct-ref' and `struct-set!' on "light structs"
74 ** Honor struct field access rights in GOOPS
75 ** Changed the storage strategy of source properties, which fixes a deadlock
76 ** Allow compilation of Guile-using programs in C99 mode with GCC 4.3 and later
77 ** Fixed build issue for GNU/Linux on IA64
78 ** Fixed build issues on NetBSD 1.6
79 ** Fixed build issue on Solaris 2.10 x86_64
80 ** Fixed build issue with DEC/Compaq/HP's compiler
81 ** Fixed `scm_from_complex_double' build issue on FreeBSD
82 ** Fixed `alloca' build issue on FreeBSD 6
83 ** Fixed shadowing of libc's <random.h> on Tru64, which broke compilation
84 ** Make sure all tests honor `$TMPDIR'
86 * Changes to the distribution
90 We've started collecting Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), and will
91 distribute these (with answers!) in future Guile releases.
94 Changes in 1.8.4 (since 1.8.3)
98 ** CR (ASCII 0x0d) is (again) recognized as a token delimiter by the reader
99 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when displaying the
100 backtrace of a stack with a promise object (made by `delay') in it.
101 ** Make `accept' leave guile mode while blocking
102 ** `scm_c_read ()' and `scm_c_write ()' now type-check their port argument
103 ** Fixed a build problem on AIX (use of func_data identifier)
104 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when hashx-ref or hashx-set! was
105 called with an associator proc that returns neither a pair nor #f.
106 ** Secondary threads now always return a valid module for (current-module).
107 ** Avoid MacOS build problems caused by incorrect combination of "64"
108 system and library calls.
109 ** `guile-snarf' now honors `$TMPDIR'
110 ** `guile-config compile' now reports CPPFLAGS used at compile-time
111 ** Fixed build with Sun Studio (Solaris 9)
112 ** Fixed wrong-type-arg errors when creating zero length SRFI-4
113 uniform vectors on AIX.
114 ** Fixed a deadlock that occurs upon GC with multiple threads.
115 ** Fixed compile problem with GCC on Solaris and AIX (use of _Complex_I)
116 ** Fixed autotool-derived build problems on AIX 6.1.
117 ** Fixed NetBSD/alpha support
118 ** Fixed MacOS build problem caused by use of rl_get_keymap(_name)
120 * New modules (see the manual for details)
124 * Documentation fixes and improvements
126 ** Removed premature breakpoint documentation
128 The features described are not available in the series of 1.8.x
129 releases, so the documentation was misleading and has been removed.
131 ** More about Guile's default *random-state* variable
133 ** GOOPS: more about how to use `next-method'
135 * Changes to the distribution
137 ** Corrected a few files that referred incorrectly to the old GPL + special exception licence
139 In fact Guile since 1.8.0 has been licensed with the GNU Lesser
140 General Public License, and the few incorrect files have now been
141 fixed to agree with the rest of the Guile distribution.
143 ** Removed unnecessary extra copies of COPYING*
145 The distribution now contains a single COPYING.LESSER at its top level.
148 Changes in 1.8.3 (since 1.8.2)
150 * New modules (see the manual for details)
157 ** The `(ice-9 slib)' module now works as expected
158 ** Expressions like "(set! 'x #t)" no longer yield a crash
159 ** Warnings about duplicate bindings now go to stderr
160 ** A memory leak in `make-socket-address' was fixed
161 ** Alignment issues (e.g., on SPARC) in network routines were fixed
162 ** A threading issue that showed up at least on NetBSD was fixed
163 ** Build problems on Solaris and IRIX fixed
165 * Implementation improvements
167 ** The reader is now faster, which reduces startup time
168 ** Procedures returned by `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' are faster
172 Changes in 1.8.2 (since 1.8.1):
174 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
176 ** set-program-arguments
181 ** Fractions were not `equal?' if stored in unreduced form.
182 (A subtle problem, since printing a value reduced it, making it work.)
183 ** srfi-60 `copy-bit' failed on 64-bit systems
184 ** "guile --use-srfi" option at the REPL can replace core functions
185 (Programs run with that option were ok, but in the interactive REPL
186 the core bindings got priority, preventing SRFI replacements or
188 ** `regexp-exec' doesn't abort() on #\nul in the input or bad flags arg
189 ** `kill' on mingw throws an error for a PID other than oneself
190 ** Procedure names are attached to procedure-with-setters
191 ** Array read syntax works with negative lower bound
192 ** `array-in-bounds?' fix if an array has different lower bounds on each index
193 ** `*' returns exact 0 for "(* inexact 0)"
194 This follows what it always did for "(* 0 inexact)".
195 ** SRFI-19: Value returned by `(current-time time-process)' was incorrect
196 ** SRFI-19: `date->julian-day' did not account for timezone offset
197 ** `ttyname' no longer crashes when passed a non-tty argument
198 ** `inet-ntop' no longer crashes on SPARC when passed an `AF_INET' address
199 ** Small memory leaks have been fixed in `make-fluid' and `add-history'
200 ** GOOPS: Fixed a bug in `method-more-specific?'
201 ** Build problems on Solaris fixed
202 ** Build problems on HP-UX IA64 fixed
203 ** Build problems on MinGW fixed
206 Changes in 1.8.1 (since 1.8.0):
208 * LFS functions are now used to access 64-bit files on 32-bit systems.
210 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
212 ** primitive-_exit - [Scheme] the-root-module
213 ** scm_primitive__exit - [C]
214 ** make-completion-function - [Scheme] (ice-9 readline)
215 ** scm_c_locale_stringn_to_number - [C]
216 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse [C]
217 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse_x [C]
223 * New `(ice-9 i18n)' module (see the manual for details)
227 ** Build problems have been fixed on MacOS, SunOS, and QNX.
229 ** `strftime' fix sign of %z timezone offset.
231 ** A one-dimensional array can now be 'equal?' to a vector.
233 ** Structures, records, and SRFI-9 records can now be compared with `equal?'.
235 ** SRFI-14 standard char sets are recomputed upon a successful `setlocale'.
237 ** `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' now have strict type checks.
239 Record accessor and modifier procedures now throw an error if the
240 record type of the record they're given is not the type expected.
241 (Previously accessors returned #f and modifiers silently did nothing).
243 ** It is now OK to use both autoload and use-modules on a given module.
245 ** `apply' checks the number of arguments more carefully on "0 or 1" funcs.
247 Previously there was no checking on primatives like make-vector that
248 accept "one or two" arguments. Now there is.
250 ** The srfi-1 assoc function now calls its equality predicate properly.
252 Previously srfi-1 assoc would call the equality predicate with the key
253 last. According to the SRFI, the key should be first.
255 ** A bug in n-par-for-each and n-for-each-par-map has been fixed.
257 ** The array-set! procedure no longer segfaults when given a bit vector.
259 ** Bugs in make-shared-array have been fixed.
261 ** string<? and friends now follow char<? etc order on 8-bit chars.
263 ** The format procedure now handles inf and nan values for ~f correctly.
265 ** exact->inexact should no longer overflow when given certain large fractions.
267 ** srfi-9 accessor and modifier procedures now have strict record type checks.
269 This matches the srfi-9 specification.
271 ** (ice-9 ftw) procedures won't ignore different files with same inode number.
273 Previously the (ice-9 ftw) procedures would ignore any file that had
274 the same inode number as a file they had already seen, even if that
275 file was on a different device.
278 Changes in 1.8.0 (changes since the 1.6.x series):
280 * Changes to the distribution
282 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
284 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
286 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
288 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
290 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
292 That is, things like HAVE_STRING_H no longer leak from Guile's
295 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
297 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
298 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
299 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
300 so the current effective-version is "1.8". The effective version
301 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
302 items like the versioned share directory name
303 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.8.
305 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
306 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
307 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
308 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
309 with each micro release during a stable series.
311 ** Thread implementation has changed.
313 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
314 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
315 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
316 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
317 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
320 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
321 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
322 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
323 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
326 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
327 in which case "null" threads are used.
329 See the manual for details, nodes "Initialization", "Multi-Threading",
330 "Blocking", and others.
332 ** There is the new notion of 'discouraged' features.
334 This is a milder form of deprecation.
336 Things that are discouraged should not be used in new code, but it is
337 OK to leave them in old code for now. When a discouraged feature is
338 used, no warning message is printed like there is for 'deprecated'
339 features. Also, things that are merely discouraged are nevertheless
340 implemented efficiently, while deprecated features can be very slow.
342 You can omit discouraged features from libguile by configuring it with
343 the '--disable-discouraged' option.
345 ** Deprecation warnings can be controlled at run-time.
347 (debug-enable 'warn-deprecated) switches them on and (debug-disable
348 'warn-deprecated) switches them off.
350 ** Support for SRFI 61, extended cond syntax for multiple values has
353 This SRFI is always available.
355 ** Support for require-extension, SRFI-55, has been added.
357 The SRFI-55 special form `require-extension' has been added. It is
358 available at startup, and provides a portable way to load Scheme
359 extensions. SRFI-55 only requires support for one type of extension,
360 "srfi"; so a set of SRFIs may be loaded via (require-extension (srfi 1
363 ** New module (srfi srfi-26) provides support for `cut' and `cute'.
365 The (srfi srfi-26) module is an implementation of SRFI-26 which
366 provides the `cut' and `cute' syntax. These may be used to specialize
367 parameters without currying.
369 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
371 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
372 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
374 ** The modules (srfi srfi-13), (srfi srfi-14) and (srfi srfi-4) have
375 been merged with the core, making their functionality always
378 The modules are still available, tho, and you could use them together
379 with a renaming import, for example.
381 ** Guile no longer includes its own version of libltdl.
383 The official version is good enough now.
385 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
387 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
388 provided. Use 'make html'.
390 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
392 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when you
393 don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but where you
394 have some section(s) of code which you consider can run in parallel to
395 other sections. See ice-9/serialize.scm for more information.
397 ** The configure option '--disable-arrays' has been removed.
399 Support for arrays and uniform numeric arrays is now always included
402 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
404 ** New command line option `-L'.
406 This option adds a directory to the front of the load path.
408 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
410 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
411 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
413 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
415 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
416 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
418 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
420 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
421 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
424 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
427 (define-module (demo)
431 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
434 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
436 ** Guardians have changed back to their original semantics
438 Guardians now behave like described in the paper by Dybvig et al. In
439 particular, they no longer make guarantees about the order in which
440 they return objects, and they can no longer be greedy.
442 They no longer drop cyclic data structures.
444 The C function scm_make_guardian has been changed incompatibly and no
445 longer takes the 'greedy_p' argument.
447 ** New function hashx-remove!
449 This function completes the set of 'hashx' functions.
451 ** The concept of dynamic roots has been factored into continuation
452 barriers and dynamic states.
454 Each thread has a current dynamic state that carries the values of the
455 fluids. You can create and copy dynamic states and use them as the
456 second argument for 'eval'. See "Fluids and Dynamic States" in the
459 To restrict the influence that captured continuations can have on the
460 control flow, you can errect continuation barriers. See "Continuation
461 Barriers" in the manual.
463 The function call-with-dynamic-root now essentially temporarily
464 installs a new dynamic state and errects a continuation barrier.
466 ** The default load path no longer includes "." at the end.
468 Automatically loading modules from the current directory should not
469 happen by default. If you want to allow it in a more controlled
470 manner, set the environment variable GUILE_LOAD_PATH or the Scheme
473 ** The uniform vector and array support has been overhauled.
475 It now complies with SRFI-4 and the weird prototype based uniform
476 array creation has been deprecated. See the manual for more details.
478 Some non-compatible changes have been made:
479 - characters can no longer be stored into byte arrays.
480 - strings and bit vectors are no longer considered to be uniform numeric
482 - array-rank throws an error for non-arrays instead of returning zero.
483 - array-ref does no longer accept non-arrays when no indices are given.
485 There is the new notion of 'generalized vectors' and corresponding
486 procedures like 'generalized-vector-ref'. Generalized vectors include
487 strings, bitvectors, ordinary vectors, and uniform numeric vectors.
489 Arrays use generalized vectors as their storage, so that you still
490 have arrays of characters, bits, etc. However, uniform-array-read!
491 and uniform-array-write can no longer read/write strings and
494 ** There is now support for copy-on-write substrings, mutation-sharing
495 substrings and read-only strings.
497 Three new procedures are related to this: substring/shared,
498 substring/copy, and substring/read-only. See the manual for more
501 ** Backtraces will now highlight the value that caused the error.
503 By default, these values are enclosed in "{...}", such as in this
512 <unnamed port>:1:1: In procedure car in expression (car (quote a)):
513 <unnamed port>:1:1: Wrong type (expecting pair): a
514 ABORT: (wrong-type-arg)
516 The prefix and suffix used for highlighting can be set via the two new
517 printer options 'highlight-prefix' and 'highlight-suffix'. For
518 example, putting this into ~/.guile will output the bad value in bold
521 (print-set! highlight-prefix "\x1b[1m")
522 (print-set! highlight-suffix "\x1b[22m")
525 ** 'gettext' support for internationalization has been added.
527 See the manual for details.
529 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
531 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
534 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
536 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
537 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
538 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
539 '@' as a target of 'set!', as in (set! (@ mod var) val).
541 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
542 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
543 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
546 ** Keyword syntax has been made more disciplined.
548 Previously, the name of a keyword was read as a 'token' but printed as
549 a symbol. Now, it is read as a general Scheme datum which must be a
560 ERROR: In expression (a b c):
564 ERROR: Unbound variable: foo
569 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): 12
573 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): (a b c)
577 ** The printing of symbols that might look like keywords can be
580 The new printer option 'quote-keywordish-symbols' controls how symbols
581 are printed that have a colon as their first or last character. The
582 default now is to only quote a symbol with #{...}# when the read
583 option 'keywords' is not '#f'. Thus:
585 guile> (define foo (string->symbol ":foo"))
586 guile> (read-set! keywords #f)
589 guile> (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
592 guile> (print-set! quote-keywordish-symbols #f)
596 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
598 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
599 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
600 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
603 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
606 ** The module system now checks for duplicate bindings.
608 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
611 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more 'duplicates'
612 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
620 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
621 has been detected is to
623 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
624 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
625 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
628 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
631 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
633 to your .guile init file.
635 ** New define-module option: :replace
637 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
640 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
641 for the core binding `format'.
643 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
645 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
646 a prefix to all imported bindings.
649 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
651 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
654 ** Conflicting generic functions can be automatically merged.
656 When two imported bindings conflict and they are both generic
657 functions, the two functions can now be merged automatically. This is
658 activated with the 'duplicates' handler 'merge-generics'.
660 ** New function: effective-version
662 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
663 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
664 to the distribution" above.
666 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
668 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
669 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
671 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
673 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
674 instead of blocking and indicate failure.
676 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
678 The function 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
679 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
682 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
684 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
686 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
688 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
689 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
690 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
693 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
694 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
695 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
698 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
699 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
701 When a thread blocks on a mutex, a condition variable or is waiting
702 for IO to be possible, it will still execute system asyncs. This can
703 be used to interrupt such a thread by making it execute a 'throw', for
706 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
708 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
709 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
712 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
713 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
715 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
716 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
717 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
718 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
719 level for the current thread.
721 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
723 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
725 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
726 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
729 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
731 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
733 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
736 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
738 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
741 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
742 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
743 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
745 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
746 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
747 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
748 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
759 ERROR: Numerical overflow
761 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
764 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
766 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
767 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
768 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
779 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
781 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
782 them is also done exactly, of course:
787 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
790 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
791 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
793 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
795 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
796 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
797 equal to a floating point number. For example:
799 (inexact->exact 1.234)
800 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
802 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitly:
804 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
807 ** New function 'rationalize'.
809 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
810 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
812 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
815 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
816 result when both its arguments are exact.
818 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
820 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
821 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
822 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
824 ** Guile now has uninterned symbols.
826 The new function 'make-symbol' will return an uninterned symbol. This
827 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
828 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
830 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
833 ** pretty-print has more options.
835 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
836 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
837 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
839 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
841 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
842 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
843 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
845 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
847 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
848 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
850 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
852 Change your code to use 'define-macro' or r5rs macros. Also, be aware
853 that macro expansion will not be done during evaluation, but prior to
856 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
858 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
859 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
860 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
861 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
862 without the soft port blocking.
864 ** Deprecated: undefine
866 There is no replacement for undefine.
868 ** The functions make-keyword-from-dash-symbol and keyword-dash-symbol
869 have been discouraged.
871 They are relics from a time where a keyword like #:foo was used
872 directly as a Tcl option "-foo" and thus keywords were internally
873 stored as a symbol with a starting dash. We now store a symbol
876 Use symbol->keyword and keyword->symbol instead.
878 ** The `cheap' debug option is now obsolete
880 Evaluator trap calls are now unconditionally "cheap" - in other words,
881 they pass a debug object to the trap handler rather than a full
882 continuation. The trap handler code can capture a full continuation
883 by using `call-with-current-continuation' in the usual way, if it so
886 The `cheap' option is retained for now so as not to break existing
887 code which gets or sets it, but setting it now has no effect. It will
888 be removed in the next major Guile release.
890 ** Evaluator trap calls now support `tweaking'
892 `Tweaking' means that the trap handler code can modify the Scheme
893 expression that is about to be evaluated (in the case of an
894 enter-frame trap) or the value that is being returned (in the case of
895 an exit-frame trap). The trap handler code indicates that it wants to
896 do this by returning a pair whose car is the symbol 'instead and whose
897 cdr is the modified expression or return value.
899 * Changes to the C interface
901 ** The functions scm_hash_fn_remove_x and scm_hashx_remove_x no longer
902 take a 'delete' function argument.
904 This argument makes no sense since the delete function is used to
905 remove a pair from an alist, and this must not be configurable.
907 This is an incompatible change.
909 ** The GH interface is now subject to the deprecation mechanism
911 The GH interface has been deprecated for quite some time but now it is
912 actually removed from Guile when it is configured with
913 --disable-deprecated.
915 See the manual "Transitioning away from GH" for more information.
917 ** A new family of functions for converting between C values and
918 Scheme values has been added.
920 These functions follow a common naming scheme and are designed to be
921 easier to use, thread-safe and more future-proof than the older
926 These are predicates that return a C boolean: 1 or 0. Instead of
927 SCM_NFALSEP, you can now use scm_is_true, for example.
929 - <type> scm_to_<type> (SCM val, ...)
931 These are functions that convert a Scheme value into an appropriate
932 C value. For example, you can use scm_to_int to safely convert from
935 - SCM scm_from_<type> (<type> val, ...)
937 These functions convert from a C type to a SCM value; for example,
938 scm_from_int for ints.
940 There is a huge number of these functions, for numbers, strings,
941 symbols, vectors, etc. They are documented in the reference manual in
942 the API section together with the types that they apply to.
944 ** New functions for dealing with complex numbers in C have been added.
946 The new functions are scm_c_make_rectangular, scm_c_make_polar,
947 scm_c_real_part, scm_c_imag_part, scm_c_magnitude and scm_c_angle.
948 They work like scm_make_rectangular etc but take or return doubles
951 ** The function scm_make_complex has been discouraged.
953 Use scm_c_make_rectangular instead.
955 ** The INUM macros have been deprecated.
957 A lot of code uses these macros to do general integer conversions,
958 although the macros only work correctly with fixnums. Use the
959 following alternatives.
961 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
962 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
963 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
964 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
966 SCM_VALIDATE_INUM_* -> Do not use these; scm_to_int, etc. will
967 do the validating for you.
969 ** The scm_num2<type> and scm_<type>2num functions and scm_make_real
970 have been discouraged.
972 Use the newer scm_to_<type> and scm_from_<type> functions instead for
973 new code. The functions have been discouraged since they don't fit
976 ** The 'boolean' macros SCM_FALSEP etc have been discouraged.
978 They have strange names, especially SCM_NFALSEP, and SCM_BOOLP
979 evaluates its argument twice. Use scm_is_true, etc. instead for new
982 ** The macro SCM_EQ_P has been discouraged.
984 Use scm_is_eq for new code, which fits better into the naming
987 ** The macros SCM_CONSP, SCM_NCONSP, SCM_NULLP, and SCM_NNULLP have
990 Use the function scm_is_pair or scm_is_null instead.
992 ** The functions scm_round and scm_truncate have been deprecated and
993 are now available as scm_c_round and scm_c_truncate, respectively.
995 These functions occupy the names that scm_round_number and
996 scm_truncate_number should have.
998 ** The functions scm_c_string2str, scm_c_substring2str, and
999 scm_c_symbol2str have been deprecated.
1001 Use scm_to_locale_stringbuf or similar instead, maybe together with
1004 ** New functions scm_c_make_string, scm_c_string_length,
1005 scm_c_string_ref, scm_c_string_set_x, scm_c_substring,
1006 scm_c_substring_shared, scm_c_substring_copy.
1008 These are like scm_make_string, scm_length, etc. but are slightly
1009 easier to use from C.
1011 ** The macros SCM_STRINGP, SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_STRING_LENGTH,
1012 SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, and SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH have been deprecated.
1014 They export too many assumptions about the implementation of strings
1015 and symbols that are no longer true in the presence of
1016 mutation-sharing substrings and when Guile switches to some form of
1019 When working with strings, it is often best to use the normal string
1020 functions provided by Guile, such as scm_c_string_ref,
1021 scm_c_string_set_x, scm_string_append, etc. Be sure to look in the
1022 manual since many more such functions are now provided than
1025 When you want to convert a SCM string to a C string, use the
1026 scm_to_locale_string function or similar instead. For symbols, use
1027 scm_symbol_to_string and then work with that string. Because of the
1028 new string representation, scm_symbol_to_string does not need to copy
1029 and is thus quite efficient.
1031 ** Some string, symbol and keyword functions have been discouraged.
1033 They don't fit into the uniform naming scheme and are not explicit
1034 about the character encoding.
1036 Replace according to the following table:
1038 scm_allocate_string -> scm_c_make_string
1039 scm_take_str -> scm_take_locale_stringn
1040 scm_take0str -> scm_take_locale_string
1041 scm_mem2string -> scm_from_locale_stringn
1042 scm_str2string -> scm_from_locale_string
1043 scm_makfrom0str -> scm_from_locale_string
1044 scm_mem2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symboln
1045 scm_mem2uninterned_symbol -> scm_from_locale_stringn + scm_make_symbol
1046 scm_str2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symbol
1048 SCM_SYMBOL_HASH -> scm_hashq
1049 SCM_SYMBOL_INTERNED_P -> scm_symbol_interned_p
1051 scm_c_make_keyword -> scm_from_locale_keyword
1053 ** The functions scm_keyword_to_symbol and sym_symbol_to_keyword are
1054 now also available to C code.
1056 ** SCM_KEYWORDP and SCM_KEYWORDSYM have been deprecated.
1058 Use scm_is_keyword and scm_keyword_to_symbol instead, but note that
1059 the latter returns the true name of the keyword, not the 'dash name',
1060 as SCM_KEYWORDSYM used to do.
1062 ** A new way to access arrays in a thread-safe and efficient way has
1065 See the manual, node "Accessing Arrays From C".
1067 ** The old uniform vector and bitvector implementations have been
1068 unceremoniously removed.
1070 This implementation exposed the details of the tagging system of
1071 Guile. Use the new C API explained in the manual in node "Uniform
1072 Numeric Vectors" and "Bit Vectors", respectively.
1074 The following macros are gone: SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE,
1075 SCM_UVECTOR_MAXLENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_UVECTOR_TAG,
1076 SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVECTOR_P, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE,
1077 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
1078 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_BITVECTOR_TAG,
1079 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVEC_REF, SCM_BITVEC_SET,
1082 ** The macros dealing with vectors have been deprecated.
1084 Use the new functions scm_is_vector, scm_vector_elements,
1085 scm_vector_writable_elements, etc, or scm_is_simple_vector,
1086 SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_REF, SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_SET, etc instead. See the
1087 manual for more details.
1089 Deprecated are SCM_VECTORP, SCM_VELTS, SCM_VECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
1090 SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_REF, SCM_VECTOR_SET, SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS.
1092 The following macros have been removed: SCM_VECTOR_BASE,
1093 SCM_SET_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_MAKE_VECTOR_TAG, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH,
1094 SCM_VELTS_AS_STACKITEMS, SCM_SETVELTS, SCM_GC_WRITABLE_VELTS.
1096 ** Some C functions and macros related to arrays have been deprecated.
1098 Migrate according to the following table:
1100 scm_make_uve -> scm_make_typed_array, scm_make_u8vector etc.
1101 scm_make_ra -> scm_make_array
1102 scm_shap2ra -> scm_make_array
1103 scm_cvref -> scm_c_generalized_vector_ref
1104 scm_ra_set_contp -> do not use
1105 scm_aind -> scm_array_handle_pos
1106 scm_raprin1 -> scm_display or scm_write
1108 SCM_ARRAYP -> scm_is_array
1109 SCM_ARRAY_NDIM -> scm_c_array_rank
1110 SCM_ARRAY_DIMS -> scm_array_handle_dims
1111 SCM_ARRAY_CONTP -> do not use
1112 SCM_ARRAY_MEM -> do not use
1113 SCM_ARRAY_V -> scm_array_handle_elements or similar
1114 SCM_ARRAY_BASE -> do not use
1116 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
1118 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which returns a pointer
1119 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
1121 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
1122 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
1123 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
1124 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
1126 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SCM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
1128 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
1129 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
1130 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
1132 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
1133 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
1135 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
1136 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
1137 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
1138 smob word. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
1140 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and re-entries.
1142 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
1143 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
1144 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
1145 prevent a potential memory leak:
1152 scm_dynwind_begin (0);
1154 mem = scm_malloc (100);
1155 scm_dynwind_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY);
1157 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
1158 SCM_DYNWIND_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless.
1165 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY, MEM will be freed by
1166 SCM_DYNWIND_END as well.
1170 For full documentation, see the node "Dynamic Wind" in the manual.
1172 ** New function scm_dynwind_free
1174 This function calls 'free' on a given pointer when a dynwind context
1175 is left. Thus the call to scm_dynwind_unwind_handler above could be
1176 replaced with simply scm_dynwind_free (mem).
1178 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
1179 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
1181 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
1183 ** New functions scm_dynwind_block_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs
1185 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
1186 scm_dynwind_block_asyncs in a 'dynwind context' (see above). Likewise for
1187 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs.
1189 ** The macros SCM_DEFER_INTS, SCM_ALLOW_INTS, SCM_REDEFER_INTS,
1190 SCM_REALLOW_INTS have been deprecated.
1192 They do no longer fulfill their original role of blocking signal
1193 delivery. Depending on what you want to achieve, replace a pair of
1194 SCM_DEFER_INTS and SCM_ALLOW_INTS with a dynwind context that locks a
1195 mutex, blocks asyncs, or both. See node "Critical Sections" in the
1198 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
1200 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
1201 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
1202 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
1204 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
1206 C code can now use scm_dynwind_current_<foo>_port in a 'dynwind
1207 context' (see above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
1209 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
1211 C code can now use scm_dynwind_fluid in a 'dynwind context' (see
1212 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
1214 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
1216 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
1217 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
1218 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
1220 ** The functions scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed.
1222 You should not have used them.
1224 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
1226 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
1227 private or renamed with a more suitable public name.
1229 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
1231 This macro is not intended for public use.
1233 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
1235 Use scm_is_true (scm_inexact_p (...)) instead.
1237 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
1239 Use scm_is_real instead.
1241 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
1243 Use scm_is_complex instead.
1245 ** Some preprocessor defines have been deprecated.
1247 These defines indicated whether a certain feature was present in Guile
1248 or not. Going forward, assume that the features are always present.
1250 The macros are: USE_THREADS, GUILE_ISELECT, READER_EXTENSIONS,
1251 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS, DYNAMIC_LINKING.
1253 The following macros have been removed completely: MEMOIZE_LOCALS,
1254 SCM_RECKLESS, SCM_CAUTIOUS.
1256 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
1258 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
1261 ** New function: scm_effective_version
1263 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
1264 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
1265 to the distribution" above.
1267 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
1269 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
1270 arguments are now passed directly:
1272 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
1274 This is an incompatible change.
1276 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
1278 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
1279 function in the init section.
1281 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
1283 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
1285 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
1286 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
1287 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
1288 stays roughly constant.
1290 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
1291 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
1292 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
1293 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
1294 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
1297 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
1298 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
1299 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
1300 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
1302 For understanding the memory usage of a GUILE program, the routine
1303 gc-live-object-stats returns an alist containing the number of live
1304 objects for every type.
1307 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
1309 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
1311 ** The struct scm_cell type has been renamed to scm_t_cell
1313 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
1314 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
1315 initializes a new cell (see below).
1317 ** New functions for memory management
1319 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
1320 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
1321 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
1322 cause aborts in long running programs.
1324 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
1325 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
1327 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
1328 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
1329 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
1330 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
1331 details and for upgrading instructions.
1333 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
1334 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
1335 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
1337 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
1339 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
1340 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
1341 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
1342 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
1343 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
1345 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
1346 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
1347 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
1349 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
1350 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
1352 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
1354 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old
1355 macros had problems because with them allocation and initialization
1356 was separated and the GC could sometimes observe half initialized
1357 cells. Only careful coding by the user of SCM_NEWCELL and
1358 SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
1360 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
1362 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
1365 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
1367 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
1369 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
1371 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or to define macros in
1372 Scheme, using 'define-macro'.
1374 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
1376 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
1377 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
1379 ** The names scm_internal_select, scm_thread_sleep, and
1380 scm_thread_usleep have been discouraged.
1382 Use scm_std_select, scm_std_sleep, scm_std_usleep instead.
1384 ** The GC can no longer be blocked.
1386 The global flags scm_gc_heap_lock and scm_block_gc have been removed.
1387 The GC can now run (partially) concurrently with other code and thus
1388 blocking it is not well defined.
1390 ** Many definitions have been removed that were previously deprecated.
1392 scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify,
1393 scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
1394 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2,
1395 scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY,
1396 SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED,
1397 scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL,
1398 SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL,
1399 SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG,
1400 SCM_NUM_SIGS, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
1401 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
1402 scm_eval2, root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
1403 SCM_RWSTRINGP, scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring,
1404 scm_tc7_substring, sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP,
1405 SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
1406 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
1407 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
1408 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
1409 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
1410 scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern, scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
1411 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
1412 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
1413 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
1414 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
1415 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
1416 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
1417 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
1418 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
1419 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
1420 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
1421 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable,
1422 SCM_CHARS, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH.
1424 * Changes to bundled modules
1428 Using the (ice-9 debug) module no longer automatically switches Guile
1429 to use the debugging evaluator. If you want to switch to the
1430 debugging evaluator (which is needed for backtrace information if you
1431 hit an error), please add an explicit "(debug-enable 'debug)" to your
1432 code just after the code to use (ice-9 debug).
1435 Changes since Guile 1.4:
1437 * Changes to the distribution
1439 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
1441 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
1443 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
1444 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
1445 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
1446 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
1447 indicate major changes in Guile.
1449 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
1450 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
1451 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
1452 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
1454 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
1455 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
1456 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
1457 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
1458 micro version number.
1460 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
1462 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
1464 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
1465 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
1467 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
1469 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
1470 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
1471 See INSTALL and README for more information.
1473 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
1475 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
1476 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
1477 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
1480 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
1482 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
1485 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
1487 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
1488 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
1490 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
1492 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
1493 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
1496 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
1498 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
1501 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
1504 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
1506 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
1508 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
1509 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
1510 open-output-string, get-output-string.
1512 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
1514 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
1516 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
1519 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
1521 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
1523 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
1525 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
1526 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
1527 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
1529 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
1531 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
1533 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
1534 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
1543 See README there for more info.
1545 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
1546 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
1549 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
1551 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
1553 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
1555 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
1556 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
1557 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
1559 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
1561 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
1562 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
1563 to be named `and-let*', of course.
1565 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
1566 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
1568 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
1571 (oop goops describe)
1573 (oop goops active-slot)
1574 (oop goops composite-slot)
1576 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
1577 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
1578 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
1580 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
1582 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
1583 in the default environment:
1585 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
1586 %read-line write-line
1588 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
1589 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
1591 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
1593 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
1596 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
1597 can be used for similar functionality.
1599 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
1601 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
1602 it defines two procedures:
1604 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1606 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
1607 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1608 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
1611 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1613 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
1614 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1615 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
1616 write large strings.
1618 ** New module (ice-9 match)
1620 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
1621 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
1623 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
1625 for complete documentation.
1627 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
1629 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
1630 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
1631 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
1632 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
1634 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
1635 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
1639 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
1640 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
1641 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
1644 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
1647 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
1648 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
1650 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
1651 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
1654 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
1657 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
1659 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
1661 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1663 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
1665 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
1666 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
1667 Scheme programs easier.
1669 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
1670 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
1671 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
1672 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
1673 `cond-expand' when using this option.
1676 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
1677 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
1679 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
1682 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
1684 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
1685 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
1686 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
1689 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1691 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
1693 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
1694 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
1695 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
1696 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
1697 was also ASCII, for example.
1699 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
1701 tag - no replacement.
1702 fseek - replaced by seek.
1703 list* - replaced by cons*.
1705 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
1709 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
1710 (define m (make-safe-module))
1711 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
1712 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
1713 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
1715 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
1717 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
1718 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
1719 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
1721 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
1723 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
1724 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
1725 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
1726 from the issues related to the module system.
1728 *** New function: load-extension
1730 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
1732 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
1734 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
1735 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
1736 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
1738 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
1740 This function registers a initialization function for use by
1741 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
1742 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
1743 support dynamic linking).
1745 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
1747 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
1748 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
1749 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
1750 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
1753 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
1754 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
1755 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
1756 library and initialize it explicitly.
1758 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
1759 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
1761 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
1763 (define-module (foo bar))
1765 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
1767 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
1769 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
1770 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
1772 (scheme-report-environment 5)
1773 (null-environment 5)
1774 (interaction-environment)
1780 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
1782 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
1783 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
1784 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
1785 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
1787 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
1788 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
1789 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
1790 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
1791 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
1792 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
1793 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
1794 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
1795 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
1796 one eval to the next.
1798 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
1799 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
1800 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
1801 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
1802 subforms are at the top-level as well.
1804 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
1805 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
1806 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
1807 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
1808 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
1809 used in a lexical environment.
1811 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
1812 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
1813 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
1814 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
1815 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
1816 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
1818 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
1820 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
1821 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
1822 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
1823 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
1824 new facilities: selection and renaming.
1826 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
1827 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
1828 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
1830 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
1831 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
1833 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
1834 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
1835 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1837 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1838 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
1840 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
1841 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
1842 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
1843 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
1846 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1847 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
1848 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
1849 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1851 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1852 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1853 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
1855 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1856 ;; and all four by upcasing.
1857 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
1858 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
1859 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
1861 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1863 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1864 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1865 :renamer upcase-symbol))
1867 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
1868 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
1869 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
1871 See manual for more info.
1873 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
1875 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
1876 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
1877 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
1879 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
1881 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
1882 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
1883 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
1885 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
1886 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
1887 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
1888 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
1890 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
1892 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
1893 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
1895 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
1896 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
1897 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
1898 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
1899 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
1902 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
1903 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
1904 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
1905 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
1906 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
1907 successful and #f if it wasn't.
1909 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
1910 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
1911 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
1912 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
1913 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
1915 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
1916 objects are usually permanent.
1918 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
1919 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
1921 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
1923 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
1924 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
1927 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
1931 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
1936 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
1938 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
1939 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
1940 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
1941 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
1943 ** New function `make-object-property'
1945 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
1946 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
1950 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
1951 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
1955 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
1956 source properties eventually.
1958 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
1960 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
1961 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
1962 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
1964 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
1965 will be removed in the next release.
1967 ** New define-module option: pure
1969 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
1974 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
1977 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
1979 Export names NAME1 ...
1981 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
1982 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
1986 (define-module (foo)
1988 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
1991 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
1996 ** New function: object->string OBJ
1998 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
2000 ** New function: port? X
2002 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
2003 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
2005 ** New function: file-port?
2007 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
2009 ** New function: port-for-each proc
2011 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
2012 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
2013 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
2014 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
2015 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
2017 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
2019 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
2020 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
2021 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
2022 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
2023 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
2026 ** New function: close-fdes fd
2028 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
2029 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
2030 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
2031 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
2034 ** New function: crypt password salt
2036 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
2039 ** New function: chroot path
2041 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
2043 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
2045 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
2048 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
2050 Get or set the priority of the running process.
2052 ** New function: getpass prompt
2054 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
2057 ** New function: flock file operation
2059 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
2061 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
2063 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
2066 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
2068 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
2069 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
2070 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
2071 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
2072 of the temporary file.
2074 ** New function: open-input-string string
2076 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
2077 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
2078 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
2080 ** New function: open-output-string
2082 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
2083 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
2085 ** New function: get-output-string
2087 Return the contents of an output string port.
2089 ** New function: identity
2091 Return the argument.
2093 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
2094 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
2096 ** New function: inet-pton family address
2098 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
2099 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
2100 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
2103 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
2104 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
2106 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
2108 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
2109 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
2110 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
2113 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
2114 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
2115 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
2119 Use `identity' instead.
2125 ** Deprecated: return-it
2129 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
2131 Use `string-length' instead.
2133 ** Deprecated: flags
2135 Use `logior' instead.
2137 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
2139 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
2140 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
2141 port-for-each is more flexible.
2143 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
2144 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
2145 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
2147 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
2149 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
2151 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
2153 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
2155 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
2157 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
2158 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
2160 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
2161 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
2163 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
2164 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
2166 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
2168 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
2169 Removed function: builtin-bindings
2171 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
2172 Use module system operations for all variables.
2174 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
2176 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
2179 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
2181 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
2182 The following bugs have been fixed:
2184 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
2185 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
2188 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
2189 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
2190 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
2192 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
2193 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
2195 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
2196 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
2199 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
2200 The expansion used to be like so:
2202 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
2204 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
2206 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
2208 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
2209 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
2211 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
2213 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
2214 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
2215 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
2219 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
2220 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
2222 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
2227 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
2228 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
2230 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
2231 and `d', other keywords allowed.
2232 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
2234 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
2237 * Changes to the C interface
2239 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
2241 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
2242 with "_t". What a concept.
2244 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
2246 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
2248 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
2252 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
2253 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
2255 *** C Functions removed
2257 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
2258 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
2259 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
2260 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
2261 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
2262 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
2263 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
2265 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
2267 Use scm_mem2string instead.
2269 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
2271 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
2273 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
2274 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
2276 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
2278 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
2281 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
2283 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
2285 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
2287 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
2288 Evaluation" in the manual.
2290 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
2292 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
2293 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
2295 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
2297 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
2298 Constructors" in the manual.
2300 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
2302 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
2303 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
2305 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
2307 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
2309 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
2310 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
2311 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
2313 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
2315 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
2317 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
2318 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
2319 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
2322 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
2324 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
2326 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
2327 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
2329 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
2331 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
2332 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
2333 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
2334 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
2336 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
2337 scm_primitive_property_ref
2338 scm_primitive_property_set_x
2339 scm_primitive_property_del_x
2341 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
2342 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
2344 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
2346 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
2347 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
2348 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
2349 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
2351 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
2353 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
2354 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
2355 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
2356 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
2357 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
2358 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
2359 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
2361 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
2362 scm_remember_upto_here
2364 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
2366 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
2368 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
2369 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
2371 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
2373 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
2375 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
2377 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
2379 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
2381 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
2382 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
2383 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
2384 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
2385 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
2386 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
2388 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
2390 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
2392 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
2393 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
2394 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
2396 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
2398 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
2399 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
2400 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
2402 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
2404 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
2405 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
2408 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
2411 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
2412 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
2415 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
2417 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
2419 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
2421 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2423 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
2425 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
2427 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
2428 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
2429 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
2430 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
2431 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
2432 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
2433 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
2434 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
2435 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
2436 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
2437 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
2438 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
2439 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
2440 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
2441 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
2443 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
2444 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
2445 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
2446 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
2447 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
2448 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
2449 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
2450 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
2451 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2452 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
2453 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
2454 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
2455 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
2456 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
2457 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
2458 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
2459 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
2460 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
2461 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
2462 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
2463 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
2464 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
2465 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
2466 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
2467 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
2468 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
2469 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
2470 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
2471 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
2473 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
2475 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
2477 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
2478 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
2480 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
2482 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
2484 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
2486 Use scm_string_hash instead.
2488 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
2490 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
2492 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
2494 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
2496 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
2499 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
2500 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
2502 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
2504 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
2506 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
2508 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
2510 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
2512 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
2514 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
2516 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
2519 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
2521 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
2523 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
2525 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
2526 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
2528 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
2529 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
2531 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
2533 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
2534 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
2535 scm_module_define, scm_define.
2537 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
2539 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
2541 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
2542 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
2544 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
2545 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
2546 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
2547 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
2549 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
2550 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
2551 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
2553 Use the new ones from above instead.
2555 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
2557 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
2558 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
2559 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
2561 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
2562 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
2564 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
2565 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
2568 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
2569 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
2571 Use the new functions instead.
2573 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
2576 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
2578 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
2580 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
2583 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
2585 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
2588 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
2590 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
2593 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
2594 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
2595 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
2597 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
2599 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
2600 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
2602 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
2603 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
2604 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
2605 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
2608 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
2610 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
2611 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
2612 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
2613 inexact for an exact.
2615 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
2616 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
2617 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
2620 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
2621 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
2622 accept an inexact argument.
2624 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
2625 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
2627 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
2630 ** New number validation macros:
2631 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
2635 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
2637 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
2638 scm_unprotect_object.
2640 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
2642 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
2644 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
2647 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
2649 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
2653 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
2655 * Changes to the distribution
2657 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
2659 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
2660 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
2661 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
2662 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
2663 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
2664 obtain these programs.
2665 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
2666 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
2668 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
2669 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
2670 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
2671 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
2672 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
2674 However, this approach means that minor differences between
2675 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
2676 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
2677 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
2681 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
2684 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
2685 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
2686 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
2687 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
2689 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
2691 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
2693 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
2694 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
2696 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
2697 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
2699 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
2700 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
2702 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
2703 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
2704 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
2705 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
2707 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
2709 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
2713 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
2714 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
2716 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
2718 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
2719 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
2721 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
2722 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
2723 number of objects of that kind.
2725 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
2727 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
2728 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
2729 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
2730 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
2731 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
2733 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
2735 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
2737 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
2739 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
2742 ** New module (ice-9 time)
2744 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
2746 ** New module (ice-9 history)
2748 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
2750 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2752 ** New command line option --debug
2754 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
2756 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
2758 ** New help facility
2760 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
2761 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
2762 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
2763 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
2764 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
2765 (help) gives this text
2767 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
2768 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
2770 Examples: (help help)
2772 (help "output-string")
2774 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
2776 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
2778 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
2779 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
2782 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
2783 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
2784 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
2787 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
2788 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
2789 use absolute filenames when possible.
2791 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
2792 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
2793 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
2796 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
2798 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
2799 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
2800 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
2801 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
2803 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
2805 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
2807 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
2808 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
2809 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
2811 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
2812 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
2813 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
2815 (read-enable 'positions)
2816 (debug-enable 'debug)
2818 ** Backtraces in scripts
2820 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
2824 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
2826 at the top of the script.
2828 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
2829 The second enables backtraces.)
2831 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
2833 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
2834 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
2835 substantially faster than before.
2837 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
2838 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
2840 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
2841 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
2843 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
2845 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
2846 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
2847 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
2849 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
2850 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
2851 when this hook is run in the future.
2853 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
2854 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
2856 ** Improvements to garbage collector
2858 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
2859 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
2862 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
2863 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
2864 more and more memory for certain programs.)
2866 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
2867 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
2869 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
2870 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
2872 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
2873 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
2874 in order not to need further allocation.)
2876 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
2879 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
2880 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
2881 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
2882 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
2884 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
2886 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
2889 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
2891 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
2894 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
2895 GC in percent of total heap size
2898 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
2899 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
2901 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
2903 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
2904 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
2906 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
2908 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
2909 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
2911 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
2913 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
2914 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
2918 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
2919 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
2921 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
2923 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2925 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
2927 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
2929 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
2931 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
2932 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
2934 (simple-format port message . args)
2935 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
2936 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
2937 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
2938 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
2939 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
2940 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
2941 Does not add a trailing newline."
2943 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
2945 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
2946 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
2948 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
2949 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
2951 ** Deprecated: list*
2953 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
2955 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
2957 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
2958 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
2960 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
2961 is returned as result.
2963 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
2965 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
2967 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
2969 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
2970 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
2973 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
2975 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
2977 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
2978 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
2980 * Changes to the gh_ interface
2982 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
2984 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
2986 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2988 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
2990 Thanks to Greg Badros!
2992 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2994 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2995 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
2996 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
2998 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
3001 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
3003 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
3004 the readability of argument checking.
3006 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
3008 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
3010 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
3012 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
3013 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
3014 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
3015 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
3016 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
3017 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
3018 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
3020 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
3022 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
3024 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
3025 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
3027 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
3029 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
3030 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
3033 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
3035 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
3036 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
3037 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
3039 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
3040 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
3041 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
3043 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
3044 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
3045 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
3046 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
3047 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
3048 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
3049 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
3051 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
3052 scm_end_input (object);
3053 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
3054 ptob->flush (object);
3056 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
3057 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
3060 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
3062 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
3064 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
3065 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
3066 removed in a future version.
3068 ** The format of error message strings has changed
3070 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
3071 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
3072 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
3073 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
3075 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
3076 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
3078 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
3081 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
3083 in your configure.in.
3085 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
3090 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
3096 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
3098 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
3102 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
3103 (define make-message string-append)
3105 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
3107 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
3111 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
3116 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
3120 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
3122 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
3123 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
3125 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
3127 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
3128 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
3129 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
3130 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
3131 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
3132 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
3134 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
3135 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
3136 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
3138 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
3139 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
3140 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
3143 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
3144 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
3145 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
3146 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
3147 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
3149 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
3150 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
3151 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
3152 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
3153 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
3154 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
3155 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
3157 Destructors are not yet implemented.
3159 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
3160 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
3161 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
3163 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
3164 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
3165 KEY in the calling thread.
3167 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
3168 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
3169 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
3170 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
3171 associated with the key.
3173 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
3175 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
3176 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
3178 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
3180 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
3181 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
3182 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
3184 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
3186 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
3187 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
3189 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
3191 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
3193 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
3194 returned is undefined.
3196 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
3197 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
3198 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
3200 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
3201 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
3202 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
3204 ** New C level GC hooks
3206 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
3208 scm_before_gc_c_hook
3211 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
3212 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
3213 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
3215 scm_before_mark_c_hook
3216 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
3217 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
3219 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
3220 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
3223 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
3225 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
3226 allocation parameters
3228 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
3229 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
3230 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
3234 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
3235 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
3236 scm_default_max_segment_size
3238 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
3240 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
3241 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
3243 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
3245 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
3246 object and count on the object being protected until
3247 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
3249 The functions also have better time complexity.
3251 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
3252 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
3253 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
3254 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
3255 are no longer needed.
3257 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
3259 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
3260 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
3261 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
3262 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
3264 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
3266 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
3268 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
3270 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
3271 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
3272 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
3273 until this issue has been settled.
3275 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
3277 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
3279 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
3282 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
3284 * Changes to system call interfaces:
3286 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
3287 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
3288 descriptors were checked.
3290 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
3291 atomically written to a pipe.
3293 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
3294 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
3295 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
3296 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
3297 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
3298 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
3299 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
3302 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
3303 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
3304 is changed without calling tzset.
3306 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
3308 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
3309 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
3310 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
3312 (define write-network-long
3313 (lambda (value port)
3314 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
3315 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
3316 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
3318 (define read-network-long
3320 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
3321 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
3322 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
3324 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
3325 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
3327 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
3328 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
3329 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
3330 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
3332 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
3333 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
3334 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
3335 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
3339 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
3341 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3345 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
3346 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
3347 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
3353 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
3354 for a description of available commands.
3356 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
3357 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
3358 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
3360 (debug-enable 'backwards)
3362 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
3363 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
3365 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
3367 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
3369 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
3370 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
3371 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
3372 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
3373 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
3374 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
3377 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
3379 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
3380 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
3381 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
3382 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
3384 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
3385 the file and should not be affected by this change.
3387 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
3389 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3391 ** Readline support has changed again.
3393 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
3394 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
3395 to activate readline is now
3397 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
3400 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
3402 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
3403 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
3404 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
3407 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
3408 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
3409 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
3412 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
3413 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
3414 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
3415 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
3416 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
3417 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
3419 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
3420 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
3422 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
3424 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
3425 object it receives is the same string passed to
3426 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
3427 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
3428 string, not the suffix.
3430 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
3431 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
3432 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
3434 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
3436 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
3437 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
3438 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
3439 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
3442 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3444 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
3446 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
3447 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
3448 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
3449 appear from left to right.
3451 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
3454 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
3456 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
3457 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
3459 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3463 *** New function: hook? OBJ
3465 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
3467 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
3469 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
3470 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
3471 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
3473 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
3475 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
3477 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
3479 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
3482 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
3484 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
3485 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
3486 mentioning it here anyway.
3488 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
3490 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
3491 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
3492 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
3493 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
3496 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
3498 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
3500 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
3502 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
3503 otherwise return #f.
3505 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
3507 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
3508 returned by `opendir'.
3510 ** New function: using-readline?
3512 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
3514 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3516 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
3517 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3519 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3521 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3523 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
3524 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
3525 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3527 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
3529 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
3530 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
3532 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
3534 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
3535 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
3536 documentation slots are not yet used.
3538 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
3540 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
3541 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
3542 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
3547 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
3548 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
3549 (string-append x y))
3551 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
3552 can also be used for concatenating strings.
3554 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
3555 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
3556 be made in a clean way.]
3558 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
3560 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3562 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3564 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
3565 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
3567 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3569 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
3571 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3573 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3575 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
3576 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
3577 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
3578 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
3581 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3583 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
3585 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3587 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3589 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
3590 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
3592 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3594 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
3596 Evaluates the body of a special form.
3598 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
3600 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
3601 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
3602 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
3603 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
3604 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
3605 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
3607 This should not make any difference for most users.
3609 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
3611 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
3612 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
3614 *** New functions for applying generic functions
3616 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
3617 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
3618 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
3619 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
3620 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
3622 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
3624 It is now replaced by:
3626 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
3628 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3629 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3631 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3633 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
3634 This might change when we get the new module system.
3636 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
3640 Changes since Guile 1.3:
3642 * Changes to mailing lists
3644 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
3646 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
3649 * Changes to the distribution
3651 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
3653 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
3654 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
3655 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
3656 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
3657 you explicitly specify it.
3659 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
3660 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
3661 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
3662 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
3663 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
3666 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
3667 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
3668 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
3669 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
3671 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
3672 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
3673 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
3676 You can activate the readline support by issuing
3678 (use-modules (readline-activator))
3681 from your ".guile" file, for example.
3683 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3685 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
3686 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
3687 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
3688 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
3690 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
3691 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
3694 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3696 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
3697 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
3698 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
3699 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
3700 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
3701 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
3702 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
3703 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
3715 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
3716 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
3717 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
3718 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
3719 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
3724 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
3725 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
3733 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
3738 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
3739 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
3742 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
3743 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
3744 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
3745 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
3747 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
3749 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
3751 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
3752 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
3754 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
3756 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
3758 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
3759 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
3761 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
3764 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
3766 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
3768 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
3770 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
3772 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
3774 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
3776 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
3777 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
3778 when the hook was created.
3780 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
3781 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
3782 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
3783 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
3784 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
3785 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
3786 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
3787 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
3788 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
3790 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
3791 the dlopen family of functions.
3793 ** New function `provided?'
3795 - Function: provided? FEATURE
3796 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
3797 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
3798 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
3800 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
3802 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
3803 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
3804 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
3805 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3808 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3809 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
3810 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
3811 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
3813 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
3814 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
3815 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
3818 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
3819 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
3820 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
3821 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
3822 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
3823 but with the flag set.
3825 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
3827 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
3828 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
3830 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
3831 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
3832 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
3833 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
3834 available Scheme format implementations.
3836 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
3837 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
3838 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
3839 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
3840 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
3841 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
3842 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
3843 output is to the current error port if available by the
3844 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
3847 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
3848 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
3849 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
3850 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
3851 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
3852 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
3853 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
3854 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
3856 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
3857 be executed at a time.
3860 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
3862 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
3863 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
3864 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
3866 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
3867 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
3868 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
3869 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
3870 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
3871 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
3872 general form of a directive is:
3874 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
3876 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
3878 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3880 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
3881 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
3882 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
3885 Any (print as `display' does).
3889 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
3893 S-expression (print as `write' does).
3897 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
3903 print number sign always.
3906 print comma separated.
3908 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
3914 print number sign always.
3917 print comma separated.
3919 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
3925 print number sign always.
3928 print comma separated.
3930 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
3936 print number sign always.
3939 print comma separated.
3941 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
3946 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
3950 print a number as a Roman numeral.
3953 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
3956 print a number as an ordinal English number.
3959 print a number as a cardinal English number.
3964 prints `y' and `ies'.
3967 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3970 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3975 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
3979 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
3982 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
3983 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
3985 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3988 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
3989 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
3991 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3994 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
3996 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
3998 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4001 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
4003 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
4005 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4008 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
4011 The sign appears before the padding.
4019 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
4021 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
4026 print N page separators.
4036 newline is ignored, white space left.
4039 newline is left, white space ignored.
4044 relative tabulation.
4050 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
4052 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
4055 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
4057 converts by `string-capitalize'.
4060 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
4063 converts by `string-upcase'.
4066 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
4068 jumps N arguments forward.
4071 jumps 1 argument backward.
4074 jumps N arguments backward.
4077 jumps to the 0th argument.
4080 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
4082 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
4083 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
4085 take argument from N.
4088 true test conditional.
4091 if-else-then conditional.
4097 default clause follows.
4100 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
4102 at most N iterations.
4105 args from next arg (a list of lists).
4108 args from the rest of arguments.
4111 args from the rest args (lists).
4122 aborts if N <= M <= K
4124 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
4127 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
4130 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
4136 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
4138 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
4140 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
4141 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
4142 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
4143 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
4144 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
4145 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
4149 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
4153 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
4159 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
4162 Print a `#\space' character
4164 print N `#\space' characters.
4167 Print a `#\tab' character
4169 print N `#\tab' characters.
4172 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
4173 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
4174 must be a positive decimal number.
4177 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
4178 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
4179 be processed by `read'.
4182 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
4183 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
4184 be processed by `read'.
4187 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
4190 prints format version.
4193 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
4194 and format it accordingly.
4196 *** Configuration Variables
4198 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
4199 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
4200 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
4201 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
4204 format:symbol-case-conv
4205 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
4206 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
4207 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
4208 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
4209 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
4211 format:iobj-case-conv
4212 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
4213 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
4216 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
4219 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
4225 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
4226 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
4227 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
4228 `format' padding style.
4231 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
4232 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
4233 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
4234 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
4238 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
4239 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
4240 directive parameters or modifiers)).
4243 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
4244 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
4245 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
4246 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
4247 parameters or modifiers)).
4250 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
4252 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
4254 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
4255 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
4257 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
4258 string-downcase! functions.
4260 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
4261 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
4263 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
4266 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
4269 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
4270 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
4272 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
4274 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
4275 the symbol had be read by `read'.
4277 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
4278 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
4279 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
4280 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
4281 would if STRING were input.
4283 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
4285 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
4286 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
4287 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
4288 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
4291 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
4293 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
4294 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
4297 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
4299 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
4300 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
4302 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
4303 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
4305 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
4306 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
4307 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
4308 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
4310 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
4311 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
4313 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
4314 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
4315 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
4317 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
4318 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
4320 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
4321 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
4322 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
4323 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
4324 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
4326 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
4327 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
4328 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
4329 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
4330 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
4331 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
4333 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
4334 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
4335 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
4338 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
4339 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
4340 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
4341 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
4342 the following grammar:
4343 ((apples (single-char #\a))
4344 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
4345 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
4346 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
4347 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
4348 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
4349 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
4350 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
4351 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
4352 last option in its combination)
4354 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
4355 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
4356 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
4357 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
4359 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
4360 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
4361 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
4363 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
4364 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
4365 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
4367 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
4368 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
4369 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
4370 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
4371 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
4372 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
4373 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
4374 ordinary argument strings.
4376 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
4377 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
4378 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
4379 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
4381 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
4382 as a list, associated with the empty list.
4384 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
4385 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
4386 - a required option is omitted
4387 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
4388 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
4389 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
4390 - an option predicate fails
4395 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
4398 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
4399 (verbose (required? #f)
4402 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
4403 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
4404 (predicate ,string?))))
4406 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
4407 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
4409 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
4410 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
4411 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
4412 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
4415 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
4417 It will be removed in a few releases.
4419 ** New syntax: lambda*
4420 ** New syntax: define*
4421 ** New syntax: define*-public
4422 ** New syntax: defmacro*
4423 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
4424 Guile now supports optional arguments.
4426 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
4427 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
4428 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
4429 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
4430 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
4432 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
4433 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
4434 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
4436 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
4438 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
4439 and examples for `lambda*':
4442 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
4444 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
4445 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
4446 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
4447 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
4448 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
4449 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
4450 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
4451 can be checked with the bound? macro.
4453 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
4455 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
4456 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
4457 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
4458 are given as keywords are bound to values.
4460 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
4461 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
4462 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
4463 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
4464 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
4465 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
4466 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
4467 and until the procedure is called.
4469 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
4471 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
4472 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
4473 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
4474 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
4475 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
4476 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
4477 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
4478 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
4479 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
4480 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
4482 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
4483 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
4484 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
4485 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
4488 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
4490 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
4491 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
4492 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
4493 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
4495 ** New syntax: and-let*
4496 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
4498 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
4499 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
4500 (<variable> <expression>)
4503 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
4504 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
4505 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
4508 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
4509 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
4510 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
4511 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
4512 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
4513 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
4514 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
4516 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
4517 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
4518 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
4519 shadow earlier bindings.
4521 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
4523 ** New sorting functions
4525 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
4526 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
4527 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
4528 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
4530 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
4531 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
4534 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4535 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
4536 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
4538 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
4539 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
4540 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
4541 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
4543 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4544 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
4545 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
4546 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
4547 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
4550 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4551 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
4552 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
4553 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
4554 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
4555 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
4557 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
4558 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
4559 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
4561 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4562 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
4563 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
4566 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
4567 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
4568 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
4570 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
4571 Added for compatibility with scsh.
4573 ** New built-in random number support
4575 *** New function: random N [STATE]
4576 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
4577 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
4578 returned have a uniform distribution.
4580 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
4581 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
4582 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
4583 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
4584 effect of the `random' operation.
4586 *** New variable: *random-state*
4587 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
4588 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
4589 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
4590 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
4591 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
4594 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
4595 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4596 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4597 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
4598 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
4600 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
4601 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4602 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4603 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
4604 initialized using SEED.
4606 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
4607 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
4608 range between 0 and 1.
4610 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4611 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
4612 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
4613 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
4614 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
4615 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
4616 or a uniform vector of doubles.
4618 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4619 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
4620 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
4621 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
4622 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
4623 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4625 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
4626 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
4627 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
4628 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
4630 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
4631 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
4632 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
4633 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4635 *** New function: random:exp STATE
4636 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
4637 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
4639 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
4641 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
4644 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
4645 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
4648 ** New function: make-guardian
4649 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
4650 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
4651 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
4652 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
4653 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
4655 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
4656 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
4657 one object if at all.
4659 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
4660 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
4661 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
4663 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
4664 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
4665 read again in last-in first-out order.
4667 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
4668 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
4670 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
4672 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
4673 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
4674 file position is used.
4676 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
4677 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
4678 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
4680 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
4681 redefined using seek.
4683 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
4684 size is not supplied.
4686 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
4687 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
4689 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
4690 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
4692 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
4694 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
4695 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
4696 and returns the contents as a single string.
4698 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
4699 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
4700 lists in serial order.
4702 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
4703 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
4704 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
4706 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
4707 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
4708 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
4709 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
4711 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
4712 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
4713 and #f if an error occured.
4715 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
4717 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
4718 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
4719 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
4720 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
4722 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
4724 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
4727 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
4729 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
4732 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4736 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
4737 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
4739 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
4740 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
4744 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4746 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
4748 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
4749 binds a variable named NAME to it.
4751 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
4753 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
4754 might change when we get the new module system.
4756 ** The smob interface
4758 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
4759 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
4761 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
4763 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
4767 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
4768 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
4769 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
4770 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
4771 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
4772 will be freed by the default free function.
4774 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4775 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
4776 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4777 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4779 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4780 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
4781 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4782 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4784 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
4786 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
4787 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
4791 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
4792 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4793 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4795 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
4796 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
4797 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4798 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4800 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
4801 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
4802 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
4804 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
4805 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
4806 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
4807 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
4809 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
4810 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
4811 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
4813 *** scm_newptob has been removed
4817 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
4819 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
4820 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
4821 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
4823 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
4824 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
4825 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
4827 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
4828 a string port's buffer.
4830 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
4831 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
4832 function pointers which together define the current random number
4833 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
4834 number library functions.
4836 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
4839 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
4840 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
4843 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
4844 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4846 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
4847 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
4849 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
4850 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
4853 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
4854 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
4855 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
4856 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
4858 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
4859 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
4860 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
4861 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
4862 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
4863 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
4864 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
4866 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
4867 by libguile and the application.
4869 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4870 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4871 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
4872 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
4874 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
4875 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
4877 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4878 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
4879 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
4881 ** Random number library functions
4882 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
4883 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
4884 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
4886 The default random state is stored in:
4888 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
4889 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
4890 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
4895 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
4897 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
4898 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
4899 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
4900 isn't a random state.
4902 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
4903 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
4905 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
4906 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
4907 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
4908 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
4910 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4911 Return 32 random bits.
4913 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4914 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
4916 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4917 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
4919 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4920 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
4922 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
4923 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4925 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
4926 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4927 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
4931 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
4933 * Changes to the distribution
4935 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
4936 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
4937 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
4940 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
4941 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
4942 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
4944 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
4945 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
4946 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
4947 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
4950 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
4951 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
4952 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
4954 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4956 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
4958 *** Function: batch-mode?
4960 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
4963 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
4965 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
4966 case has not been implemented.
4968 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
4969 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
4970 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
4973 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
4974 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
4976 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
4978 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4980 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
4982 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
4983 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
4986 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
4987 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
4988 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
4989 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
4992 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
4994 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
4995 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
4996 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
4997 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
4998 find those libraries.
5000 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
5001 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
5004 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
5006 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
5007 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
5008 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
5009 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
5011 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
5012 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
5013 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
5017 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
5019 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
5020 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
5021 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
5024 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
5025 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
5026 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
5027 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
5029 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
5030 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
5033 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
5034 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
5035 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
5036 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
5037 compiler where to find the libraries.
5039 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
5040 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
5041 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
5043 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
5044 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
5045 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
5046 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
5047 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
5051 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5053 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
5054 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
5055 internationalization support.
5057 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
5058 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
5059 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
5060 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
5061 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
5063 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
5064 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
5065 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
5066 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
5067 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
5069 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
5070 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
5071 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
5072 any GNU mirror site.
5074 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
5076 ** New function: add-history STRING
5077 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
5078 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
5079 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
5081 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
5083 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
5084 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
5085 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
5088 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
5089 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
5090 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
5092 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
5094 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
5097 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
5098 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
5101 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
5102 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
5103 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
5104 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
5105 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
5106 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
5108 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
5109 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
5110 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
5111 of the form mentioned above.
5113 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
5114 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
5115 returned in the special `rest' list.
5117 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
5118 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
5120 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
5122 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
5124 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
5126 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
5127 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
5128 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
5129 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
5130 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
5131 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
5132 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
5133 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
5136 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
5138 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
5140 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
5141 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
5144 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
5145 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
5146 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
5150 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
5151 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
5152 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
5153 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
5154 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
5155 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
5156 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
5157 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
5160 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
5162 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
5163 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
5164 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
5166 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
5168 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
5169 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
5171 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
5172 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
5173 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
5175 Why do we have this function?
5176 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
5177 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
5178 primitive, and display it differently, and
5179 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
5180 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
5183 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
5184 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
5187 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
5188 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
5189 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
5190 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
5192 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
5193 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
5196 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
5197 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
5199 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
5201 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
5202 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
5203 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
5204 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
5205 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
5206 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
5207 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
5210 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
5212 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
5213 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
5215 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
5216 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
5217 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
5218 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
5219 properly continue the print chain.
5221 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
5222 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
5223 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
5224 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
5225 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
5226 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
5227 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
5228 print-state, it is simply ignored.
5230 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
5231 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
5232 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
5233 safest to not check for these pairs.
5235 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
5236 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
5237 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
5238 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
5240 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
5242 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
5243 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
5245 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
5247 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
5249 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
5250 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
5251 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
5253 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
5254 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
5255 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
5257 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
5258 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
5259 the following functions and macros:
5261 Function: make-fluid
5263 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
5264 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
5265 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
5266 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
5267 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
5269 Function: fluid? OBJ
5271 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
5273 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
5274 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
5276 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
5277 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
5279 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
5281 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
5282 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
5283 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
5284 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
5285 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
5286 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
5287 modified by `with-fluids*'.
5289 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
5291 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
5292 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
5293 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
5294 should evaluate to a fluid.
5296 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
5298 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
5299 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
5300 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
5301 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
5302 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
5304 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
5307 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
5309 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
5311 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
5313 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
5316 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
5317 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
5318 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
5319 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
5320 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
5323 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
5324 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
5325 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
5327 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
5328 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
5329 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
5331 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
5332 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
5333 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
5334 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
5336 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
5337 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
5338 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
5339 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
5341 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
5342 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
5343 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
5344 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
5346 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
5347 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
5348 their revealed counts set to zero.
5350 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5351 Returns an integer file descriptor.
5353 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5354 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
5356 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5357 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
5359 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5360 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
5361 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
5363 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
5364 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
5365 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
5367 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
5368 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
5369 default environment inherited by child processes.
5371 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
5372 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
5373 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
5375 The return value is unspecified.
5377 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
5378 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
5379 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
5380 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
5381 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
5383 The return value is unspecified.
5385 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
5386 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
5394 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
5395 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
5398 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
5401 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
5402 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
5403 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
5405 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
5406 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
5407 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
5408 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
5411 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
5412 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
5414 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
5415 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
5416 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
5417 the `environ' procedure.
5419 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
5420 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
5423 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
5424 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
5426 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
5427 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
5428 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
5429 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
5431 *** procedure: times
5432 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
5433 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
5434 return a selected component:
5437 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
5441 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
5444 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
5448 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
5449 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
5453 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
5454 terminated child processes.
5456 ** Removed: list-length
5457 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
5458 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
5460 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
5462 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
5464 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
5466 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
5467 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
5468 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
5469 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
5471 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
5472 extra complexity it introduces.
5474 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
5475 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
5477 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
5478 variable to any non-empty value.
5480 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
5481 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
5483 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5485 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
5486 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
5488 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
5490 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
5491 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
5493 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
5495 ** vector handling routines
5497 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
5498 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
5499 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
5500 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
5501 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
5503 ** pair and list routines
5505 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
5508 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
5510 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
5513 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5515 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
5517 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
5518 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
5519 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
5520 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
5521 site-specific initialization code.
5523 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
5524 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
5525 initialization processes.
5527 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
5528 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
5529 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
5530 initialized properly.
5532 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
5533 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
5534 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
5536 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
5537 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
5538 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
5539 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
5540 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
5542 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
5544 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
5545 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
5546 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
5547 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
5548 objects the smob refers to get marked.
5550 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
5551 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
5552 which look like this:
5555 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
5557 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
5558 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
5561 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
5562 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
5565 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
5567 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
5568 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
5569 you will need to change your functions slightly.
5571 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
5572 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
5573 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
5574 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
5575 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
5577 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
5578 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
5580 int (*free) (SCM port);
5581 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
5582 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
5583 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
5587 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
5588 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
5589 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
5591 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
5594 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
5595 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
5596 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
5598 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
5599 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
5600 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
5603 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
5607 struct timeval *timeout);
5609 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
5610 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
5611 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
5612 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
5613 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
5614 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
5616 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
5617 scm_catch_body_t body,
5619 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5622 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
5623 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
5624 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
5625 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
5626 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
5627 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
5629 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
5631 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5634 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
5635 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
5636 spawning threads from application C code.
5638 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
5639 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
5640 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
5641 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
5642 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
5643 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
5645 ** Removed functions:
5647 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
5648 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
5650 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
5652 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
5653 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
5655 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
5657 ** mbstrings are now removed
5659 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
5660 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
5662 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
5664 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
5665 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
5666 their new names and arguments:
5668 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
5669 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
5670 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
5671 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
5674 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
5676 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
5678 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
5681 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
5683 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
5684 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
5685 pass a #f arg to catch.
5687 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
5689 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
5690 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
5693 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
5694 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
5695 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
5696 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
5697 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
5698 reclaim its storage.
5700 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
5701 worrying that some other function you call will call
5702 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
5703 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
5704 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
5705 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
5708 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
5710 * Changes to the distribution
5712 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
5713 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
5716 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
5717 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
5719 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5720 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5722 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
5724 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
5725 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
5726 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
5728 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5730 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
5731 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
5732 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
5733 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
5734 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
5735 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
5737 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
5738 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
5739 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
5742 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
5743 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
5744 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
5745 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
5747 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
5748 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
5749 libraries to your link command:
5751 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
5752 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
5753 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5754 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5756 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
5757 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
5758 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
5760 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5762 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
5763 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
5766 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
5768 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
5769 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
5770 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
5771 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
5772 searched is system dependent.
5774 (dynamic-object? VAL)
5776 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
5778 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
5780 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
5781 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
5783 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5785 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
5786 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
5787 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
5788 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
5789 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
5792 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5794 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
5795 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
5796 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
5797 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
5798 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
5800 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
5802 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
5803 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
5805 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
5807 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
5808 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
5809 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
5812 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
5814 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
5815 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
5816 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
5817 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
5819 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
5820 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
5822 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
5824 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
5825 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
5827 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
5829 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
5830 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
5838 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
5840 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
5841 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
5842 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
5843 a more informative way.
5845 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
5846 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
5847 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
5848 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
5849 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
5850 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
5852 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
5853 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
5856 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
5857 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
5858 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
5861 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
5862 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
5863 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
5864 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
5865 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
5866 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
5868 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
5869 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
5870 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
5871 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
5874 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
5875 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
5876 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
5877 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
5878 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
5879 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
5881 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
5882 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
5883 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
5884 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
5885 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
5887 *** regexp functions
5889 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
5890 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
5891 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
5893 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
5894 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
5895 with SCSH regular expressions.
5897 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
5898 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
5899 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
5900 position of STR at which to begin matching.
5902 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
5903 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
5904 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
5905 `string-match' returns `#f'.
5907 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
5908 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
5909 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
5910 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
5911 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
5912 match strings against the compiled regexp.
5914 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
5915 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
5916 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
5917 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
5918 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
5920 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5922 **** Constant: regexp/extended
5923 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
5924 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
5925 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
5927 **** Constant: regexp/icase
5928 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
5929 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
5931 **** Constant: regexp/newline
5932 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
5934 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
5937 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
5938 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5939 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
5941 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
5942 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5943 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
5945 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
5946 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
5947 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
5948 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
5949 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
5952 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5954 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
5955 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
5956 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
5957 used when different portions of a string are passed to
5958 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
5959 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
5961 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
5962 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
5963 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
5965 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
5966 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
5969 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
5970 and replace them with the contents of another string.
5972 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
5973 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
5974 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
5975 may be one of the following arguments:
5977 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
5979 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
5981 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
5982 the regexp match is written.
5984 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
5985 following the regexp match is written.
5987 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
5988 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
5991 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
5992 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
5993 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
5994 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
5995 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
5996 which should be matched against this regular expression.
5998 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
6001 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
6002 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
6003 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
6004 written out to PORT.
6006 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
6007 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
6008 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
6009 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
6010 will return after processing a single match.
6012 *** Match Structures
6014 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
6015 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
6016 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
6017 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
6018 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
6019 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
6022 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
6023 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
6024 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
6025 information about the original target string that was matched against a
6026 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
6028 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
6029 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
6030 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
6032 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
6033 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
6034 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
6035 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
6036 number N did not match, return `#f'.
6038 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
6039 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
6041 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
6042 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
6044 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
6045 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
6047 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
6048 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
6050 **** Function: match:count MATCH
6051 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
6052 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
6053 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
6055 **** Function: match:string MATCH
6056 Return the original TARGET string.
6058 *** Backslash Escapes
6060 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
6061 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
6062 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
6063 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
6064 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
6065 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
6067 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
6068 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
6069 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
6070 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
6071 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
6072 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
6073 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
6074 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
6076 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
6077 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
6078 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
6079 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
6080 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
6081 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
6082 each match a single backslash in the target string.
6084 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
6085 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
6086 return the resulting string.
6088 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
6089 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
6090 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
6091 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
6092 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
6093 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
6094 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
6095 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
6096 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
6097 translated to the single character `*'.
6099 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
6100 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
6101 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
6102 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
6103 consecutive backslashes:
6105 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
6107 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
6108 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
6109 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
6111 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
6112 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
6113 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
6114 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
6115 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
6116 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
6118 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
6120 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
6121 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
6122 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
6123 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
6124 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
6125 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
6126 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
6127 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
6128 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
6129 cumbersome escape syntax.
6131 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6133 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6135 * Changes to system call interfaces:
6137 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
6140 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
6142 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
6144 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
6147 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
6148 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
6149 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
6150 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
6151 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
6153 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
6154 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
6155 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
6156 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
6157 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
6158 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
6159 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
6162 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
6163 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
6164 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
6167 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
6168 `force-output' on every port open for output.
6170 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
6171 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
6172 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
6173 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
6174 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
6175 installed, you can say:
6177 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
6180 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6182 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
6183 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
6184 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
6185 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
6186 new dynamic roots and threads.
6189 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
6191 * Changes to the distribution.
6193 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
6195 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
6196 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
6197 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
6198 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
6199 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
6200 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
6201 programming language. These are packaged together because the
6202 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
6204 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
6207 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
6208 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
6213 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
6215 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
6216 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
6218 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
6219 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
6220 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
6221 the (command-line) function.
6222 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
6223 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
6224 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
6226 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
6227 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
6228 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
6229 command line arguments
6230 -ds do -s script at this point
6231 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
6232 -h, --help display this help and exit
6233 -v, --version display version information and exit
6234 \ read arguments from following script lines
6236 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
6237 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
6239 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6242 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
6246 (main (command-line))
6248 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
6250 ekko a speckled gecko
6252 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
6253 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
6254 following list of command-line arguments:
6256 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
6258 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
6259 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
6260 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
6261 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
6262 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
6264 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
6266 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
6268 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
6269 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
6272 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
6273 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
6274 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
6275 SCSH) for circumventing them.
6277 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
6278 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
6279 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
6280 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
6282 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
6286 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
6290 If the user invokes this script as follows:
6292 ekko a speckled gecko
6294 Unix expands this into
6296 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
6298 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
6299 read from the second line of the script, producing:
6301 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6303 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
6304 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
6306 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
6307 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
6308 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
6309 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
6310 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
6311 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
6312 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
6313 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
6314 it only terminates the argument list.)
6315 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
6316 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
6317 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
6318 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
6319 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
6320 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
6321 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
6322 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
6324 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
6326 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
6327 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
6328 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
6329 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
6330 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
6332 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
6333 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
6334 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
6336 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
6338 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
6339 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
6340 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
6341 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
6344 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
6345 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
6346 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
6348 * Changes to Scheme functions
6350 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
6351 and disabled by default.
6353 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
6354 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
6355 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
6356 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
6358 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
6360 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
6362 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
6363 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
6365 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
6366 (read-set! keywords #f)
6368 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
6369 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
6370 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
6373 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
6374 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
6375 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
6378 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
6379 support for Scheme functions.
6381 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
6382 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
6383 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
6384 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
6387 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
6388 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
6389 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
6392 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
6393 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
6394 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
6397 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
6398 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
6399 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
6400 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
6401 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
6402 display the result as a prompt.
6403 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
6405 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
6406 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
6407 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
6410 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
6411 procedure of zero arguments.
6413 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
6414 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
6415 argument is bound in the current module.
6417 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
6418 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
6419 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
6420 public bindings into the current module.
6422 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
6423 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
6425 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
6426 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
6428 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
6429 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
6431 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
6432 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
6434 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
6435 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
6437 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
6438 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
6439 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
6440 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
6441 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
6443 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
6444 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
6445 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
6446 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
6448 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
6451 ** Changes to I/O functions
6453 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
6454 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
6455 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
6457 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
6458 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
6459 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
6461 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
6462 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
6464 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
6465 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
6466 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
6467 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
6469 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
6471 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
6472 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
6474 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
6475 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
6476 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
6477 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
6478 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
6481 'trim omit delimiter from result
6482 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
6483 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
6484 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
6486 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
6488 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
6489 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
6491 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
6492 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
6493 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
6494 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
6495 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
6497 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
6498 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
6499 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
6501 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
6502 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
6503 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
6504 above, and defaults to 'peek.
6506 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
6507 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6509 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
6510 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
6512 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
6514 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
6515 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
6516 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
6517 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
6518 a delimiting character.
6519 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
6521 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
6522 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
6523 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
6524 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
6525 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
6526 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
6528 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
6529 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6531 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
6532 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
6533 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
6535 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
6536 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
6537 the array to read and write.
6539 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
6540 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
6543 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
6545 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
6548 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
6549 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
6550 Values for COMMAND are:
6552 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
6553 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
6554 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
6555 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
6556 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
6557 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
6558 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
6559 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
6561 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
6563 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
6564 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
6565 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
6566 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
6567 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
6568 corresponding return set will be the same.
6570 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
6573 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
6574 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
6575 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
6576 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
6577 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
6578 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
6579 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
6580 special file being created.
6582 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
6583 clashing with various SCSH forks.
6585 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
6586 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
6587 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
6588 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
6589 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
6590 and originating address.
6592 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
6593 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
6594 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
6596 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
6599 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
6600 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
6603 (status:exit-val STATUS)
6604 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
6605 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
6606 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
6607 this function returns #f.
6609 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
6610 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
6611 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
6614 (status:term-sig STATUS)
6615 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
6616 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
6619 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
6620 a valid STATUS value.
6622 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
6624 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
6625 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
6627 Component Accessor Setter
6628 ========================= ============ ============
6629 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
6630 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
6631 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
6632 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
6633 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
6634 year tm:year set-tm:year
6635 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
6636 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
6637 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
6638 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
6639 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
6641 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
6642 describing the host system:
6645 ============================================== ================
6646 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
6647 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
6648 release level of the operating system utsname:release
6649 version level of the operating system utsname:version
6650 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
6652 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
6653 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
6654 system's user database:
6657 ====================== =================
6658 user name passwd:name
6659 user password passwd:passwd
6662 real name passwd:gecos
6663 home directory passwd:dir
6664 shell program passwd:shell
6666 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
6667 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
6668 system's group database:
6671 ======================= ============
6672 group name group:name
6673 group password group:passwd
6675 group members group:mem
6677 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
6678 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
6682 ========================= ===============
6683 official name of host hostent:name
6684 alias list hostent:aliases
6685 host address type hostent:addrtype
6686 length of address hostent:length
6687 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
6689 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
6690 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
6694 ========================= ===============
6695 official name of net netent:name
6696 alias list netent:aliases
6697 net number type netent:addrtype
6698 net number netent:net
6700 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
6701 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
6705 ========================= ===============
6706 official protocol name protoent:name
6707 alias list protoent:aliases
6708 protocol number protoent:proto
6710 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
6711 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
6715 ========================= ===============
6716 official service name servent:name
6717 alias list servent:aliases
6718 port number servent:port
6719 protocol to use servent:proto
6721 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
6722 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
6725 ======================================== ===============
6726 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
6727 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
6728 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
6729 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
6731 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
6732 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
6733 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
6735 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
6736 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
6738 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
6739 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
6741 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
6742 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
6744 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
6746 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
6748 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
6749 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
6750 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
6752 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
6753 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
6754 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
6755 return the remaining characters as a string.
6757 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
6758 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
6759 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
6761 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
6763 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6765 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
6768 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
6771 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
6772 and returns the array
6774 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
6775 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
6776 the user to interpret the data both ways.
6778 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6780 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
6781 symbol's value from C code:
6783 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
6784 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
6785 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
6786 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
6788 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
6789 without assigning them a value.
6791 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
6792 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
6793 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
6795 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
6796 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
6797 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
6799 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
6800 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
6802 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
6803 doesn't actually care about that.
6805 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
6806 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
6807 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
6809 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
6810 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
6811 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
6812 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
6813 which we have just created and initialized.
6815 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
6816 should one occur. We call it like this:
6817 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
6819 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
6820 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
6821 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
6822 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
6823 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
6824 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
6827 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
6828 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
6829 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
6830 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
6831 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
6832 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
6833 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
6836 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
6837 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
6838 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
6839 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
6840 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
6843 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
6844 scm_internal_catch, except:
6846 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
6847 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
6848 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
6849 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
6852 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
6853 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
6854 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
6856 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
6857 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
6858 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
6859 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
6862 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
6863 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
6864 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
6866 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
6867 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
6868 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
6869 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
6870 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
6872 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
6873 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
6874 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
6876 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
6877 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
6878 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
6880 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
6881 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
6883 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
6884 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
6885 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
6888 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
6889 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
6890 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
6891 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
6892 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
6893 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
6894 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
6897 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
6898 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
6900 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
6901 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
6902 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
6903 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
6904 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
6907 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
6908 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
6910 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
6911 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
6914 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
6915 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
6917 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6920 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
6921 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
6922 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
6923 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
6924 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
6925 given the following arguments:
6927 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6929 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
6931 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
6933 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6936 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
6937 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
6938 command-line arguments.
6940 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
6941 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
6942 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
6943 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
6944 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
6945 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
6948 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6951 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
6952 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
6954 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
6955 rearranged slightly. They are now:
6957 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6958 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6959 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
6960 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
6962 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6963 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6965 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6966 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
6967 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6968 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
6970 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6971 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6973 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
6974 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
6976 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
6978 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
6979 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
6980 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
6983 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
6984 returns a port instead of an FD object.
6986 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
6987 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
6992 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
6995 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
6997 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
6998 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
6999 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
7000 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
7002 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
7004 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
7006 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
7007 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
7008 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
7009 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
7010 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
7011 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
7012 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
7013 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
7014 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
7015 for more information.
7017 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
7018 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
7020 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
7021 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
7022 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
7023 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
7024 following two lines at the top of the file:
7026 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
7029 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
7030 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
7031 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
7033 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
7035 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
7037 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
7040 (display (car args))
7041 (if (pair? (cdr args))
7043 (loop (cdr args)))))
7046 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
7047 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
7048 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
7049 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
7050 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
7051 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
7055 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
7058 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
7061 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
7063 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
7064 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
7065 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
7066 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
7067 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
7070 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
7071 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
7072 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
7073 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
7074 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
7077 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
7080 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
7081 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
7082 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
7085 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
7086 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
7087 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
7089 to see a backtrace, and
7090 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
7091 to see them by default.
7095 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
7097 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
7099 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
7100 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
7103 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
7104 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
7105 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
7106 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
7109 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
7110 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
7111 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
7112 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
7113 functions which inspired them.
7115 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
7116 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
7120 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
7122 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
7124 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
7125 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
7128 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
7129 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
7130 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
7132 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
7133 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
7134 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
7135 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
7136 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
7138 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
7140 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
7141 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
7142 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
7145 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
7148 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
7150 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
7151 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
7152 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
7153 above should serve their purposes.
7155 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
7156 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
7157 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
7158 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
7160 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
7163 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
7164 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
7165 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
7166 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
7168 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
7169 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
7170 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
7171 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
7173 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
7174 for the `read' function.
7177 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
7178 to that of `integer?'.
7180 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
7181 use the R4RS names for these functions.
7183 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
7184 it simply returns the object's property list.
7186 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
7187 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
7188 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
7189 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
7191 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
7193 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
7196 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
7198 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
7199 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
7201 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
7203 void (*main_func) (),
7206 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
7207 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
7208 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
7209 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
7210 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
7212 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
7213 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
7214 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
7215 know which arguments have been processed.
7217 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
7218 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
7219 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
7220 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
7221 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
7223 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
7224 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
7225 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
7226 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
7227 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
7228 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
7229 people from making that mistake.
7231 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
7232 convenient ways to override these when desired.
7234 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
7236 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
7240 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
7243 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
7244 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
7245 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
7246 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
7249 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
7250 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
7251 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
7252 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
7255 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
7256 have been added to the Guile library.
7258 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
7259 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
7260 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
7263 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
7264 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
7265 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
7267 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
7268 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
7269 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
7270 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
7271 argument from the list.
7274 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
7277 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
7278 null-terminated string, and returns it.
7280 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
7281 to a Scheme port object.
7283 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
7284 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
7289 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
7291 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
7292 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
7293 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
7294 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
7295 code as a special datatype.
7297 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
7298 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
7299 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
7300 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
7301 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
7304 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
7305 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
7306 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
7307 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
7308 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
7310 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
7313 Copyright information:
7315 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
7317 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
7318 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
7319 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
7320 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
7322 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
7323 of this document, or of portions of it,
7324 under the above conditions, provided also that they
7325 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
7330 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"