1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes. -*- text -*-
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
7 Changes since Guile 1.4:
9 * Changes to the distribution
11 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
13 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
14 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
15 to be named `and-let*', of course.
17 On systems that support it, there is also a compatability module named
18 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
20 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
25 (oop goops active-slot)
26 (oop goops composite-slot)
28 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
29 integrated into Guile.
33 (use-modules (oop goops))
35 access GOOPS bindings.
37 We're now ready to try some basic GOOPS functionality.
41 (define-method (+ (x <string>) (y <string>))
45 (+ "abc" "de") --> "abcde"
49 (define-class <2D-vector> ()
50 (x #:init-value 0 #:accessor x-component #:init-keyword #:x)
51 (y #:init-value 0 #:accessor y-component #:init-keyword #:y))
53 (define-method write ((obj <2D-vector>) port)
54 (display (format #f "<~S, ~S>" (x-component obj) (y-component obj))
57 (define v (make <2D-vector> #:x 3 #:y 4))
60 (define-method + ((x <2D-vector>) (y <2D-vector>))
62 #:x (+ (x-component x) (x-component y))
63 #:y (+ (y-component x) (y-component y))))
67 Asking for the type of an object
69 (class-of v) --> #<<class> <2D-vector> 40241ac0>
70 <2D-vector> --> #<<class> <2D-vector> 40241ac0>
71 (class-of 1) --> #<<class> <integer> 401b2a98>
72 <integer> --> #<<class> <integer> 401b2a98>
74 (is-a? v <2D-vector>) --> #t
76 See further in the GOOPS tutorial available in the guile-doc
77 distribution in info (goops.info) and texinfo formats.
79 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
81 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
82 in the default environment:
84 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
87 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
88 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
90 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
92 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
95 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
96 can be used for similar functionality.
98 ** New module (ice-9 match)
100 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher:
102 (use-modules (ice-9 match))
106 (('+ x y) `(add ,x ,y))
107 (('- x y) `(sub ,x ,y))) => (add 1 2)
109 See ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
110 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html for complete documentation.
112 This module requires SLIB to be installed and available from Guile.
114 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
116 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
120 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
121 (define m (make-safe-module))
122 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
123 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
124 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
126 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
128 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
130 The function `eval' will now save and restore the current module
131 around the evaluation of the specified expression. While this
132 expression is evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right
133 module, which is the module specified as the second argument to
136 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularily
137 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
138 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
139 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
140 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
141 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
142 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
143 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
144 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
145 one eval to the next.
147 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
148 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
149 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
150 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
151 subforms are at the top-level as well.
153 To prevent strange behaviour, the forms `define-module',
154 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
155 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
156 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
157 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
158 used in a lexical environment.
160 ** `port-for-each' makes an additional guarantee.
162 From the docstring: @var{proc} is applied exactly once to every port
163 that exists in the system at the time @var{port-for-each} is invoked.
164 Changes to the port table while @var{port-for-each} is running have no
165 effect as far as @var{port-for-each} is concerned.
167 This guarantee is important to make (ice-9 popen) work reliable.
169 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
171 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
172 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
173 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
175 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
177 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
178 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
179 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
181 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
182 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
183 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
184 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
186 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
188 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
189 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
191 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
192 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
193 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
194 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
195 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
198 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
199 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
200 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
201 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
202 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
203 successful and #f if it wasn't.
205 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
206 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
207 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
208 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
209 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
211 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
212 objects are usually permanent.
214 ** Escape procedures created by call-with-current-continuation now
215 accept any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
217 ** New function `make-object-property'
219 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
220 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
224 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
225 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
229 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
230 source properties eventually.
232 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
234 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
235 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
236 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
238 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
239 will be removed in the next release.
241 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
243 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
244 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
246 (scheme-report-environment 5)
248 (interaction-environment)
254 ** New define-module option: pure
256 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
261 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
264 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
266 Export names NAME1 ...
268 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
269 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
275 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
278 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
283 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
285 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
287 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
288 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
290 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
292 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
295 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
297 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
299 ** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
301 Read characters from an fport or file descriptor into a string
302 STR. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
303 large strings. It will:
305 * attempt to fill the entire string, unless the START and/or
306 END arguments are supplied. i.e., START defaults to 0 and
307 END defaults to `(string-length str)'
309 * use the current input port if PORT_OR_FDES is not supplied.
311 * read any characters that are currently available, without
312 waiting for the rest (short reads are possible).
314 * wait for as long as it needs to for the first character to
315 become available, unless the port is in non-blocking mode
317 * return `#f' if end-of-file is encountered before reading any
318 characters, otherwise return the number of characters read.
320 * return 0 if the port is in non-blocking mode and no characters
321 are immediately available.
323 * return 0 if the request is for 0 bytes, with no end-of-file
326 ** New function: port? X
328 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
329 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
331 ** New function: file-port?
333 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
335 ** New function: port-for-each proc
337 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The
338 return value is unspecified.
340 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
342 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
343 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
344 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
345 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
346 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
349 ** New function: close-fdes fd
351 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
352 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
353 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
354 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
357 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except. This was intended for closing
358 ports in a child process after a fork, but it has the undesirable side
359 effect of flushing buffers. port-for-each is more flexible.
361 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
362 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
363 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
365 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
367 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
369 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
371 * Changes to the gh_ interface
373 * Changes to the scm_ interface
375 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
377 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
378 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
380 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
382 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
383 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
384 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
385 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
387 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
388 scm_primitive_property_ref
389 scm_primitive_property_set_x
390 scm_primitive_property_del_x
392 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
393 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
395 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
397 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
398 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
399 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
400 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
402 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
404 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
405 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
406 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
407 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
408 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
409 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
410 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
412 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
413 scm_remember_upto_here
415 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
417 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
419 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
420 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
422 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
424 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
425 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
426 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
427 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
428 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
429 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
431 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
433 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
435 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
436 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
437 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
439 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
441 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
442 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
443 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
445 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
447 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
448 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
451 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
454 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
455 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
458 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
460 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
462 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
464 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
466 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
468 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
470 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
471 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
472 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
473 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
474 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
475 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
476 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
477 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
478 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
479 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
480 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
481 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR
483 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
484 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
485 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
486 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
487 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
488 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
489 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
490 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
491 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
492 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
493 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
494 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
495 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
496 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
497 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
498 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
499 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
500 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
501 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
502 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
503 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
504 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
505 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
507 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
509 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
511 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
512 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
514 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
516 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
518 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
520 Use scm_string_hash instead.
522 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
524 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
526 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
528 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
530 ** New function: scm_gentemp (SCM prefix, SCM obarray)
532 The builtin `gentemp' has now become a primitive.
534 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
537 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
538 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
540 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
542 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
544 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
546 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
549 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
551 * Changes to the distribution
553 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
555 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
556 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
557 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
558 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
559 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
560 obtain these programs.
561 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
562 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
564 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
565 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
566 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
567 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
568 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
570 However, this approach means that minor differences between
571 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
572 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
573 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
577 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
580 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
581 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
582 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
583 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
585 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
587 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
589 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
590 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
592 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
593 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
595 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
596 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
598 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
599 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
600 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
601 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
603 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
605 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
609 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
610 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
612 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
614 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
615 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
617 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
618 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
619 number of objects of that kind.
621 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
623 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
624 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
625 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
626 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
627 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
629 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
631 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
633 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
635 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
638 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
640 ** New command line option --debug
642 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
644 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
648 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
649 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
650 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
651 (help) gives this text
653 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
654 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
656 Examples: (help help)
658 (help "output-string")
660 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
662 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
664 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
665 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
668 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
669 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
670 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
673 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
674 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
675 use absolute filenames when possible.
677 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
678 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
679 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
682 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
684 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
685 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
686 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
687 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
689 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
691 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
693 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
694 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
695 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
697 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
698 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
699 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
701 (read-enable 'positions)
702 (debug-enable 'debug)
704 ** Backtraces in scripts
706 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
710 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
712 at the top of the script.
714 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
715 The second enables backtraces.)
717 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
719 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
720 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
721 substantially faster than before.
723 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
724 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
726 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
727 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
729 ** gc-thunk is deprecated
731 gc-thunk will be removed in next release of Guile. It has been
732 replaced by after-gc-hook.
734 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
736 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
737 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
738 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
740 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
741 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
742 when this hook is run in the future.
744 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
745 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
747 ** Improvements to garbage collector
749 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
750 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
753 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
754 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
755 more and more memory for certain programs.)
757 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
758 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
760 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
761 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
763 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
764 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
765 in order not to need further allocation.)
767 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
770 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
771 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
772 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
773 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
775 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
777 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
780 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
782 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
785 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
786 GC in percent of total heap size
789 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
790 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
792 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
794 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
795 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
797 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
799 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
800 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
802 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
804 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
805 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
809 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
810 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
812 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
814 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
816 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
818 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
820 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
822 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
823 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
825 (simple-format port message . args)
826 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
827 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
828 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
829 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
830 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
831 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
832 Does not add a trailing newline."
834 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
836 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
837 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
839 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
840 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
844 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
846 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
848 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
849 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
851 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
852 is returned as result.
854 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
856 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
858 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
860 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
861 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
864 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
866 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
868 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
869 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
871 * Changes to the gh_ interface
873 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
875 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
877 * Changes to the scm_ interface
879 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
881 Thanks to Greg Badros!
883 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
885 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
886 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
887 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
889 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
892 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
894 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
895 the readability of argument checking.
897 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
899 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
901 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
903 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
904 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
905 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
906 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
907 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
908 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
909 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
911 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
913 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
915 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
916 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
918 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
920 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
921 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
924 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
926 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
927 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
928 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
930 Further, it is recommended not to rely on implementation details for guile's
931 current implementation of bignums. It is planned to replace this
932 implementation with gmp in the future.
934 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
935 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
936 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
938 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
939 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
940 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
941 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
942 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
943 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
944 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
946 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
947 scm_end_input (object);
948 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
949 ptob->flush (object);
951 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
952 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
955 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
957 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
959 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
960 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
961 removed in a future version.
963 ** The format of error message strings has changed
965 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
966 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
967 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
968 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
970 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
971 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
973 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
976 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
978 in your configure.in.
980 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
985 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
991 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
993 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
997 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
998 (define make-message string-append)
1000 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
1002 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
1006 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
1011 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
1015 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
1017 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
1018 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
1020 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
1022 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
1023 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
1024 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
1025 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
1026 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
1027 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
1029 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
1030 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
1031 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
1033 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
1034 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
1035 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
1038 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
1039 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
1040 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
1041 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
1042 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
1044 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
1045 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
1046 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
1047 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
1048 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
1049 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
1050 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
1052 Destructors are not yet implemented.
1054 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
1055 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
1056 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
1058 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
1059 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
1060 KEY in the calling thread.
1062 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
1063 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
1064 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
1065 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
1066 associated with the key.
1068 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
1070 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
1071 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
1073 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
1075 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
1076 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
1077 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
1079 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
1081 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
1082 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
1084 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
1086 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
1088 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
1089 returned is undefined.
1091 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
1092 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
1093 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
1095 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
1096 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
1097 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
1099 ** New C level GC hooks
1101 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
1103 scm_before_gc_c_hook
1106 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
1107 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
1108 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
1110 scm_before_mark_c_hook
1111 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
1112 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
1114 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
1115 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
1118 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
1120 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
1121 allocation parameters
1123 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
1124 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
1125 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
1129 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
1130 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
1131 scm_default_max_segment_size
1133 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
1135 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
1136 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
1138 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
1140 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
1141 object and count on the object being protected until
1142 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
1144 The functions also have better time complexity.
1146 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
1147 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
1148 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
1149 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
1150 are no longer needed.
1152 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
1154 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
1155 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
1156 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
1157 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
1159 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
1161 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
1163 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
1165 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
1166 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
1167 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
1168 until this issue has been settled.
1170 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
1172 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
1174 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
1177 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
1179 * Changes to system call interfaces:
1181 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
1182 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
1183 descriptors were checked.
1185 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
1186 atomically written to a pipe.
1188 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
1189 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
1190 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
1191 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
1192 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
1193 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
1194 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
1197 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
1198 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
1199 is changed without calling tzset.
1201 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
1203 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
1204 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
1205 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
1207 (define write-network-long
1208 (lambda (value port)
1209 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
1210 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
1211 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
1213 (define read-network-long
1215 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
1216 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
1217 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
1219 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
1220 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
1222 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
1223 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
1224 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
1225 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
1227 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
1228 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
1229 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
1230 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
1234 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
1236 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1240 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
1241 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
1242 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
1248 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
1249 for a description of available commands.
1251 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
1252 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
1253 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
1255 (debug-enable 'backwards)
1257 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
1258 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
1260 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
1262 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
1264 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
1265 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
1266 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
1267 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
1268 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
1269 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
1272 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
1274 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
1275 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
1276 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
1277 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
1279 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
1280 the file and should not be affected by this change.
1282 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
1284 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1286 ** Readline support has changed again.
1288 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
1289 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
1290 to activate readline is now
1292 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
1295 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
1297 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
1298 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
1299 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
1302 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
1303 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
1304 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
1307 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
1308 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
1309 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
1310 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
1311 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
1312 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
1314 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
1315 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
1317 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
1319 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
1320 object it receives is the same string passed to
1321 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
1322 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
1323 string, not the suffix.
1325 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
1326 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
1327 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
1329 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
1331 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
1332 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
1333 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
1334 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
1337 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
1339 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
1341 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
1342 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
1343 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
1344 appear from left to right.
1346 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
1349 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
1351 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
1352 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
1354 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
1358 *** New function: hook? OBJ
1360 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
1362 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
1364 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
1365 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
1366 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
1368 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
1370 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
1372 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
1374 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
1377 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
1379 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
1380 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
1381 mentioning it here anyway.
1383 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
1385 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
1386 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
1387 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
1388 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
1391 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
1393 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
1395 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
1397 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
1398 otherwise return #f.
1400 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
1402 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
1403 returned by `opendir'.
1405 ** New function: using-readline?
1407 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
1409 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
1411 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
1412 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
1414 * Changes to the scm_ interface
1416 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
1418 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
1419 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
1420 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
1422 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
1424 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
1425 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
1427 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
1429 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
1430 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
1431 documentation slots are not yet used.
1433 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
1435 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
1436 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
1437 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
1442 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
1443 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
1444 (string-append x y))
1446 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
1447 can also be used for concatenating strings.
1449 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
1450 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
1451 be made in a clean way.]
1453 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
1455 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
1457 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
1459 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
1460 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
1462 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
1464 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
1466 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
1468 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
1470 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
1471 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
1472 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
1473 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
1476 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
1478 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
1480 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
1482 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
1484 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
1485 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
1487 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
1489 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
1491 Evaluates the body of a special form.
1493 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
1495 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
1496 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
1497 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
1498 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
1499 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
1500 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
1502 This should not make any difference for most users.
1504 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
1506 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
1507 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
1509 *** New functions for applying generic functions
1511 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
1512 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
1513 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
1514 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
1515 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
1517 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
1519 It is now replaced by:
1521 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
1523 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
1524 binds a variable named NAME to it.
1526 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
1528 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
1529 This might change when we get the new module system.
1531 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
1535 Changes since Guile 1.3:
1537 * Changes to mailing lists
1539 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
1541 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
1544 * Changes to the distribution
1546 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
1548 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
1549 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
1550 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
1551 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
1552 you explicitly specify it.
1554 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
1555 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
1556 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
1557 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
1558 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
1561 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
1562 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
1563 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
1564 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
1566 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
1567 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
1568 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
1571 You can activate the readline support by issuing
1573 (use-modules (readline-activator))
1576 from your ".guile" file, for example.
1578 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1580 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
1581 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
1582 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
1583 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
1585 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
1586 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
1589 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1591 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
1592 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
1593 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
1594 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
1595 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
1596 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
1597 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
1598 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
1610 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
1611 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
1612 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
1613 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
1614 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
1619 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
1620 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
1628 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
1633 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
1634 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
1637 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
1638 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
1639 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
1640 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
1642 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
1644 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
1646 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
1647 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
1649 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
1651 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
1653 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
1654 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
1656 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
1659 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
1661 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
1663 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
1665 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
1667 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
1669 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
1671 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
1672 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
1673 when the hook was created.
1675 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
1676 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
1677 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
1678 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
1679 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
1680 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
1681 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
1682 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
1683 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
1685 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
1686 the dlopen family of functions.
1688 ** New function `provided?'
1690 - Function: provided? FEATURE
1691 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
1692 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
1693 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
1695 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
1697 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
1698 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
1699 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
1700 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
1703 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
1704 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
1705 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
1706 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
1708 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
1709 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
1710 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
1713 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
1714 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
1715 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
1716 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
1717 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
1718 but with the flag set.
1720 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
1722 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
1723 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
1725 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
1726 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
1727 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
1728 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
1729 available Scheme format implementations.
1731 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
1732 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
1733 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
1734 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
1735 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
1736 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
1737 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
1738 output is to the current error port if available by the
1739 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
1742 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
1743 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
1744 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
1745 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
1746 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
1747 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
1748 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
1749 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
1751 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
1752 be executed at a time.
1755 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
1757 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
1758 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
1759 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
1761 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
1762 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
1763 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
1764 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
1765 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
1766 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
1767 general form of a directive is:
1769 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
1771 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
1773 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
1775 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
1776 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
1777 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
1780 Any (print as `display' does).
1784 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
1788 S-expression (print as `write' does).
1792 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
1798 print number sign always.
1801 print comma separated.
1803 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
1809 print number sign always.
1812 print comma separated.
1814 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
1820 print number sign always.
1823 print comma separated.
1825 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
1831 print number sign always.
1834 print comma separated.
1836 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
1841 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
1845 print a number as a Roman numeral.
1848 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
1851 print a number as an ordinal English number.
1854 print a number as a cardinal English number.
1859 prints `y' and `ies'.
1862 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
1865 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
1870 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
1874 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
1877 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
1878 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
1880 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
1883 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
1884 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
1886 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
1889 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
1891 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
1893 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
1896 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
1898 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
1900 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
1903 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
1906 The sign appears before the padding.
1914 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
1916 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
1921 print N page separators.
1931 newline is ignored, white space left.
1934 newline is left, white space ignored.
1939 relative tabulation.
1945 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
1947 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
1950 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
1952 converts by `string-capitalize'.
1955 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
1958 converts by `string-upcase'.
1961 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
1963 jumps N arguments forward.
1966 jumps 1 argument backward.
1969 jumps N arguments backward.
1972 jumps to the 0th argument.
1975 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
1977 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
1978 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
1980 take argument from N.
1983 true test conditional.
1986 if-else-then conditional.
1992 default clause follows.
1995 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
1997 at most N iterations.
2000 args from next arg (a list of lists).
2003 args from the rest of arguments.
2006 args from the rest args (lists).
2017 aborts if N <= M <= K
2019 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
2022 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
2025 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
2031 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
2033 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
2035 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
2036 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
2037 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
2038 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
2039 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
2040 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
2044 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
2048 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
2054 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
2057 Print a `#\space' character
2059 print N `#\space' characters.
2062 Print a `#\tab' character
2064 print N `#\tab' characters.
2067 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
2068 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
2069 must be a positive decimal number.
2072 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
2073 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
2074 be processed by `read'.
2077 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
2078 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
2079 be processed by `read'.
2082 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
2085 prints format version.
2088 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
2089 and format it accordingly.
2091 *** Configuration Variables
2093 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
2094 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
2095 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
2096 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
2099 format:symbol-case-conv
2100 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
2101 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
2102 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
2103 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
2104 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
2106 format:iobj-case-conv
2107 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
2108 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
2111 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
2114 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
2120 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
2121 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
2122 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
2123 `format' padding style.
2126 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
2127 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
2128 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
2129 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
2133 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
2134 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
2135 directive parameters or modifiers)).
2138 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
2139 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
2140 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
2141 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
2142 parameters or modifiers)).
2145 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
2147 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
2149 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
2150 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
2152 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
2153 string-downcase! functions.
2155 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
2156 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
2158 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
2161 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
2164 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
2165 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
2167 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
2169 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
2170 the symbol had be read by `read'.
2172 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
2173 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
2174 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
2175 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
2176 would if STRING were input.
2178 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
2180 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
2181 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
2182 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
2183 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
2186 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
2188 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
2189 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
2192 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
2194 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
2195 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
2197 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
2198 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
2200 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
2201 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
2202 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
2203 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
2205 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
2206 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
2208 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
2209 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
2210 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
2212 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
2213 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
2215 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
2216 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
2217 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
2218 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
2219 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
2221 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
2222 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
2223 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
2224 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
2225 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
2226 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
2228 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
2229 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
2230 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
2233 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
2234 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
2235 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
2236 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
2237 the following grammar:
2238 ((apples (single-char #\a))
2239 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
2240 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
2241 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
2242 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
2243 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
2244 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
2245 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
2246 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
2247 last option in its combination)
2249 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
2250 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
2251 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
2252 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
2254 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
2255 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
2256 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
2258 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
2259 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
2260 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
2262 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
2263 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
2264 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
2265 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
2266 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
2267 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
2268 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
2269 ordinary argument strings.
2271 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
2272 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
2273 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
2274 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
2276 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
2277 as a list, associated with the empty list.
2279 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
2280 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
2281 - a required option is omitted
2282 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
2283 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
2284 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
2285 - an option predicate fails
2290 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
2293 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
2294 (verbose (required? #f)
2297 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
2298 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
2299 (predicate ,string?))))
2301 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
2302 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
2304 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
2305 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
2306 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
2307 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
2310 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
2312 It will be removed in a few releases.
2314 ** New syntax: lambda*
2315 ** New syntax: define*
2316 ** New syntax: define*-public
2317 ** New syntax: defmacro*
2318 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
2319 Guile now supports optional arguments.
2321 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
2322 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
2323 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
2324 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
2325 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
2327 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
2328 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
2329 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
2331 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
2333 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
2334 and examples for `lambda*':
2337 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
2339 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
2340 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
2341 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
2342 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
2343 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
2344 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
2345 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
2346 can be checked with the bound? macro.
2348 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
2350 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
2351 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
2352 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
2353 are given as keywords are bound to values.
2355 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
2356 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
2357 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
2358 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
2359 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
2360 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
2361 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
2362 and until the procedure is called.
2364 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
2366 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
2367 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
2368 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
2369 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
2370 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
2371 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
2372 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
2373 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
2374 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
2375 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
2377 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
2378 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
2379 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
2380 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
2383 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
2385 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
2386 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
2387 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
2388 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
2390 ** New syntax: and-let*
2391 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
2393 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
2394 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
2395 (<variable> <expression>)
2398 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
2399 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
2400 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
2403 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
2404 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
2405 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
2406 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
2407 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
2408 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
2409 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
2411 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
2412 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
2413 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
2414 shadow earlier bindings.
2416 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
2418 ** New sorting functions
2420 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
2421 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
2422 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
2423 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
2425 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
2426 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
2429 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
2430 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
2431 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
2433 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
2434 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
2435 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
2436 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
2438 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
2439 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
2440 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
2441 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
2442 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
2445 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
2446 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
2447 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
2448 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
2449 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
2450 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
2452 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
2453 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
2454 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
2456 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
2457 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
2458 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
2461 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
2462 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
2463 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
2465 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
2466 Added for compatibility with scsh.
2468 ** New built-in random number support
2470 *** New function: random N [STATE]
2471 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
2472 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
2473 returned have a uniform distribution.
2475 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
2476 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
2477 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
2478 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
2479 effect of the `random' operation.
2481 *** New variable: *random-state*
2482 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
2483 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
2484 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
2485 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
2486 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
2489 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
2490 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
2491 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
2492 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
2493 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
2495 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
2496 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
2497 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
2498 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
2499 initialized using SEED.
2501 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
2502 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
2503 range between 0 and 1.
2505 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
2506 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
2507 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
2508 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
2509 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
2510 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
2511 or a uniform vector of doubles.
2513 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
2514 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
2515 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
2516 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
2517 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
2518 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
2520 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
2521 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
2522 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
2523 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
2525 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
2526 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
2527 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
2528 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
2530 *** New function: random:exp STATE
2531 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
2532 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
2534 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
2536 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
2539 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
2540 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
2543 ** New function: make-guardian
2544 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
2545 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
2546 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
2547 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
2548 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
2550 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
2551 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
2552 one object if at all.
2554 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
2555 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
2556 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
2558 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
2559 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
2560 read again in last-in first-out order.
2562 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
2563 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
2565 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
2567 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
2568 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
2569 file position is used.
2571 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
2572 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
2573 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
2575 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
2576 redefined using seek.
2578 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
2579 size is not supplied.
2581 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
2582 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
2584 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
2585 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
2587 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
2589 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
2590 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
2591 and returns the contents as a single string.
2593 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
2594 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
2595 lists in serial order.
2597 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
2598 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
2599 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
2601 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
2602 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
2603 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
2604 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
2606 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
2607 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
2608 and #f if an error occured.
2610 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
2612 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
2613 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
2614 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
2615 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
2617 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
2619 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
2622 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
2624 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
2627 * Changes to the gh_ interface
2631 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
2632 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
2634 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
2635 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
2639 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2641 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
2643 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
2644 binds a variable named NAME to it.
2646 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
2648 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
2649 might change when we get the new module system.
2651 ** The smob interface
2653 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
2654 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
2656 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
2658 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
2662 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
2663 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
2664 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
2665 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
2666 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
2667 will be freed by the default free function.
2669 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
2670 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
2671 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
2672 `scm_make_smob_type'.
2674 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
2675 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
2676 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
2677 `scm_make_smob_type'.
2679 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
2681 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
2682 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
2686 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
2687 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
2688 `scm_make_smob_type'.
2690 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
2691 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
2692 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
2693 `scm_make_smob_type'.
2695 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
2696 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
2697 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
2699 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
2700 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
2701 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
2702 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
2704 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
2705 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
2706 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
2708 *** scm_newptob has been removed
2712 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
2714 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
2715 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
2716 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
2718 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
2719 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
2720 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
2722 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
2723 a string port's buffer.
2725 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
2726 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
2727 function pointers which together define the current random number
2728 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
2729 number library functions.
2731 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
2734 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
2735 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
2738 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
2739 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
2741 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
2742 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
2744 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
2745 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
2748 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
2749 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
2750 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
2751 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
2753 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
2754 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
2755 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
2756 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
2757 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
2758 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
2759 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
2761 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
2762 by libguile and the application.
2764 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
2765 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
2766 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
2767 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
2769 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
2770 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
2772 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
2773 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
2774 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
2776 ** Random number library functions
2777 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
2778 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
2779 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
2781 The default random state is stored in:
2783 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
2784 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
2785 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
2790 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
2792 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
2793 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
2794 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
2795 isn't a random state.
2797 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
2798 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
2800 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
2801 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
2802 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
2803 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
2805 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
2806 Return 32 random bits.
2808 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
2809 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
2811 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
2812 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
2814 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
2815 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
2817 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
2818 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
2820 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
2821 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
2822 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
2826 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
2828 * Changes to the distribution
2830 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
2831 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
2832 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
2835 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
2836 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
2837 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
2839 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
2840 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
2841 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
2842 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
2845 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
2846 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
2847 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
2849 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2851 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
2853 *** Function: batch-mode?
2855 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
2858 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
2860 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
2861 case has not been implemented.
2863 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
2864 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
2865 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
2868 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
2869 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
2871 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
2873 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
2875 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
2877 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
2878 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
2881 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
2882 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
2883 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
2884 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
2887 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
2889 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
2890 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
2891 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
2892 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
2893 find those libraries.
2895 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
2896 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
2899 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
2901 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
2902 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
2903 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
2904 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
2906 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
2907 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
2908 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
2912 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
2914 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
2915 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
2916 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
2919 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
2920 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
2921 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
2922 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
2924 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
2925 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
2928 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
2929 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
2930 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
2931 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
2932 compiler where to find the libraries.
2934 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
2935 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
2936 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
2938 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
2939 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
2940 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
2941 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
2942 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
2946 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2948 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
2949 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
2950 internationalization support.
2952 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
2953 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
2954 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
2955 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
2956 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
2958 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
2959 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
2960 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
2961 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
2962 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
2964 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
2965 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
2966 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
2967 any GNU mirror site.
2969 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
2971 ** New function: add-history STRING
2972 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
2973 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
2974 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
2976 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
2978 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
2979 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
2980 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
2983 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
2984 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
2985 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
2987 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
2989 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
2992 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
2993 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
2996 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
2997 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
2998 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
2999 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
3000 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
3001 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
3003 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
3004 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
3005 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
3006 of the form mentioned above.
3008 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
3009 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
3010 returned in the special `rest' list.
3012 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
3013 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
3015 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
3017 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
3019 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
3021 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
3022 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
3023 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
3024 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
3025 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
3026 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
3027 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
3028 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
3031 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
3033 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
3035 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
3036 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
3039 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
3040 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
3041 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
3045 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
3046 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
3047 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
3048 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
3049 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
3050 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
3051 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
3052 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
3055 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
3057 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
3058 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
3059 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
3061 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
3063 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
3064 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
3066 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
3067 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
3068 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
3070 Why do we have this function?
3071 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
3072 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
3073 primitive, and display it differently, and
3074 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
3075 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
3078 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
3079 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
3082 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
3083 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
3084 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
3085 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
3087 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
3088 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
3091 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
3092 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
3094 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
3096 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
3097 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
3098 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
3099 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
3100 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
3101 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
3102 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
3105 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
3107 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
3108 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
3110 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
3111 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
3112 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
3113 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
3114 properly continue the print chain.
3116 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
3117 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
3118 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
3119 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
3120 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
3121 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
3122 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
3123 print-state, it is simply ignored.
3125 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
3126 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
3127 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
3128 safest to not check for these pairs.
3130 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
3131 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
3132 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
3133 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
3135 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
3137 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
3138 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
3140 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
3142 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
3144 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
3145 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
3146 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
3148 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
3149 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
3150 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
3152 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
3153 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
3154 the following functions and macros:
3156 Function: make-fluid
3158 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
3159 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
3160 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
3161 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
3162 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
3164 Function: fluid? OBJ
3166 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
3168 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
3169 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
3171 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
3172 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
3174 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
3176 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
3177 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
3178 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
3179 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
3180 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
3181 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
3182 modified by `with-fluids*'.
3184 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
3186 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
3187 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
3188 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
3189 should evaluate to a fluid.
3191 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
3193 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
3194 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
3195 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
3196 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
3197 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
3199 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
3202 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
3204 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
3206 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
3208 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
3211 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
3212 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
3213 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
3214 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
3215 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
3218 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
3219 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
3220 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
3222 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
3223 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
3224 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
3226 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
3227 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
3228 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
3229 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
3231 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
3232 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
3233 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
3234 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
3236 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
3237 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
3238 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
3239 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
3241 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
3242 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
3243 their revealed counts set to zero.
3245 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3246 Returns an integer file descriptor.
3248 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3249 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
3251 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3252 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
3254 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3255 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
3256 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
3258 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
3259 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
3260 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
3262 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
3263 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
3264 default environment inherited by child processes.
3266 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
3267 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
3268 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
3270 The return value is unspecified.
3272 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
3273 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
3274 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
3275 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
3276 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
3278 The return value is unspecified.
3280 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
3281 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
3289 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
3290 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
3293 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
3296 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
3297 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
3298 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
3300 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
3301 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
3302 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
3303 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
3306 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
3307 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
3309 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
3310 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
3311 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
3312 the `environ' procedure.
3314 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
3315 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
3318 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
3319 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
3321 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
3322 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
3323 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
3324 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
3326 *** procedure: times
3327 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
3328 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
3329 return a selected component:
3332 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
3336 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
3339 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
3343 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
3344 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
3348 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
3349 terminated child processes.
3351 ** Removed: list-length
3352 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
3353 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
3355 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
3357 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
3359 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
3361 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
3362 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
3363 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
3364 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
3366 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
3367 extra complexity it introduces.
3369 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
3370 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
3372 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
3373 variable to any non-empty value.
3375 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
3376 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
3378 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3380 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
3381 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
3383 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
3385 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
3386 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
3388 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
3390 ** vector handling routines
3392 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
3393 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
3394 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
3395 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
3396 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
3398 ** pair and list routines
3400 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
3403 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
3405 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
3408 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3410 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
3412 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
3413 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
3414 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
3415 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
3416 site-specific initialization code.
3418 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
3419 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
3420 initialization processes.
3422 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
3423 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
3424 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
3425 initialized properly.
3427 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
3428 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
3429 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
3431 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
3432 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
3433 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
3434 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
3435 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
3437 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
3439 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
3440 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
3441 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
3442 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
3443 objects the smob refers to get marked.
3445 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
3446 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
3447 which look like this:
3450 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
3452 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
3453 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
3456 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
3457 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
3460 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
3462 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
3463 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
3464 you will need to change your functions slightly.
3466 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
3467 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
3468 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
3469 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
3470 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
3472 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
3473 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
3475 int (*free) (SCM port);
3476 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
3477 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
3478 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
3482 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
3483 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
3484 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
3486 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
3489 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
3490 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
3491 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
3493 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
3494 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
3495 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
3498 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
3502 struct timeval *timeout);
3504 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
3505 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
3506 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
3507 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
3508 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
3509 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
3511 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
3512 scm_catch_body_t body,
3514 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
3517 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
3518 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
3519 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
3520 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
3521 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
3522 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
3524 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
3526 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
3529 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
3530 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
3531 spawning threads from application C code.
3533 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
3534 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
3535 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
3536 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
3537 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
3538 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
3540 ** Removed functions:
3542 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
3543 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
3545 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
3547 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
3548 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
3550 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
3552 ** mbstrings are now removed
3554 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
3555 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
3557 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
3559 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
3560 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
3561 their new names and arguments:
3563 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
3564 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
3565 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
3566 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
3569 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
3571 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
3573 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
3576 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
3578 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
3579 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
3580 pass a #f arg to catch.
3582 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
3584 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
3585 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
3588 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
3589 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
3590 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
3591 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
3592 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
3593 reclaim its storage.
3595 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
3596 worrying that some other function you call will call
3597 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
3598 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
3599 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
3600 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
3603 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
3605 * Changes to the distribution
3607 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
3608 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
3611 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
3612 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
3614 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
3615 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
3617 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
3619 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
3620 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
3621 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
3623 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
3625 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
3626 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
3627 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
3628 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
3629 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
3630 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
3632 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
3633 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
3634 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
3637 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
3638 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
3639 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
3640 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
3642 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
3643 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
3644 libraries to your link command:
3646 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
3647 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
3648 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
3649 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
3651 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
3652 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
3653 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
3655 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3657 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
3658 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
3661 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
3663 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
3664 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
3665 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
3666 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
3667 searched is system dependent.
3669 (dynamic-object? VAL)
3671 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
3673 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
3675 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
3676 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
3678 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
3680 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
3681 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
3682 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
3683 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
3684 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
3687 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
3689 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
3690 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
3691 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
3692 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
3693 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
3695 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
3697 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
3698 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
3700 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
3702 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
3703 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
3704 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
3707 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
3709 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
3710 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
3711 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
3712 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
3714 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
3715 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
3717 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
3719 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
3720 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
3722 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
3724 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
3725 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
3733 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
3735 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
3736 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
3737 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
3738 a more informative way.
3740 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
3741 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
3742 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
3743 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
3744 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
3745 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
3747 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
3748 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
3751 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
3752 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
3753 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
3756 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
3757 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
3758 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
3759 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
3760 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
3761 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
3763 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
3764 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
3765 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
3766 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
3769 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
3770 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
3771 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
3772 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
3773 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
3774 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
3776 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
3777 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
3778 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
3779 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
3780 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
3782 *** regexp functions
3784 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
3785 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
3786 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
3788 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
3789 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
3790 with SCSH regular expressions.
3792 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
3793 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
3794 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
3795 position of STR at which to begin matching.
3797 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
3798 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
3799 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
3800 `string-match' returns `#f'.
3802 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
3803 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
3804 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
3805 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
3806 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
3807 match strings against the compiled regexp.
3809 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
3810 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
3811 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
3812 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
3813 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
3815 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
3817 **** Constant: regexp/extended
3818 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
3819 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
3820 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
3822 **** Constant: regexp/icase
3823 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
3824 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
3826 **** Constant: regexp/newline
3827 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
3829 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
3832 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
3833 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
3834 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
3836 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
3837 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
3838 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
3840 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
3841 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
3842 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
3843 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
3844 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
3847 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
3849 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
3850 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
3851 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
3852 used when different portions of a string are passed to
3853 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
3854 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
3856 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
3857 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
3858 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
3860 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
3861 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
3864 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
3865 and replace them with the contents of another string.
3867 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
3868 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
3869 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
3870 may be one of the following arguments:
3872 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
3874 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
3876 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
3877 the regexp match is written.
3879 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
3880 following the regexp match is written.
3882 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
3883 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
3886 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
3887 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
3888 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
3889 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
3890 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
3891 which should be matched against this regular expression.
3893 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
3896 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
3897 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
3898 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
3899 written out to PORT.
3901 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
3902 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
3903 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
3904 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
3905 will return after processing a single match.
3907 *** Match Structures
3909 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
3910 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
3911 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
3912 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
3913 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
3914 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
3917 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
3918 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
3919 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
3920 information about the original target string that was matched against a
3921 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
3923 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
3924 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
3925 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
3927 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
3928 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
3929 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
3930 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
3931 number N did not match, return `#f'.
3933 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
3934 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
3936 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
3937 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
3939 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
3940 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
3942 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
3943 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
3945 **** Function: match:count MATCH
3946 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
3947 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
3948 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
3950 **** Function: match:string MATCH
3951 Return the original TARGET string.
3953 *** Backslash Escapes
3955 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
3956 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
3957 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
3958 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
3959 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
3960 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
3962 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
3963 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
3964 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
3965 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
3966 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
3967 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
3968 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
3969 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
3971 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
3972 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
3973 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
3974 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
3975 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
3976 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
3977 each match a single backslash in the target string.
3979 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
3980 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
3981 return the resulting string.
3983 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
3984 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
3985 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
3986 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
3987 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
3988 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
3989 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
3990 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
3991 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
3992 translated to the single character `*'.
3994 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
3995 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
3996 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
3997 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
3998 consecutive backslashes:
4000 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
4002 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
4003 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
4004 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
4006 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
4007 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
4008 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
4009 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
4010 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
4011 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
4013 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
4015 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
4016 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
4017 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
4018 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
4019 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
4020 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
4021 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
4022 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
4023 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
4024 cumbersome escape syntax.
4026 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4028 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4030 * Changes to system call interfaces:
4032 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
4035 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
4037 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
4039 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
4042 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
4043 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
4044 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
4045 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
4046 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
4048 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
4049 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
4050 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
4051 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
4052 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
4053 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
4054 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
4057 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
4058 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
4059 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
4062 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
4063 `force-output' on every port open for output.
4065 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
4066 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
4067 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
4068 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
4069 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
4070 installed, you can say:
4072 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
4075 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4077 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
4078 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
4079 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
4080 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
4081 new dynamic roots and threads.
4084 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
4086 * Changes to the distribution.
4088 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
4090 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
4091 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
4092 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
4093 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
4094 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
4095 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
4096 programming language. These are packaged together because the
4097 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
4099 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
4102 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
4103 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
4108 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4110 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
4111 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
4113 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
4114 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
4115 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
4116 the (command-line) function.
4117 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
4118 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
4119 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
4121 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
4122 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
4123 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
4124 command line arguments
4125 -ds do -s script at this point
4126 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
4127 -h, --help display this help and exit
4128 -v, --version display version information and exit
4129 \ read arguments from following script lines
4131 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
4132 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
4134 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
4137 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
4141 (main (command-line))
4143 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
4145 ekko a speckled gecko
4147 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
4148 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
4149 following list of command-line arguments:
4151 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
4153 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
4154 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
4155 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
4156 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
4157 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
4159 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
4161 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
4163 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
4164 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
4167 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
4168 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
4169 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
4170 SCSH) for circumventing them.
4172 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
4173 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
4174 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
4175 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
4177 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
4181 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
4185 If the user invokes this script as follows:
4187 ekko a speckled gecko
4189 Unix expands this into
4191 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
4193 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
4194 read from the second line of the script, producing:
4196 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
4198 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
4199 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
4201 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
4202 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
4203 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
4204 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
4205 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
4206 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
4207 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
4208 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
4209 it only terminates the argument list.)
4210 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
4211 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
4212 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
4213 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
4214 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
4215 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
4216 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
4217 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
4219 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4221 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
4222 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
4223 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
4224 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
4225 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
4227 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
4228 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
4229 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
4231 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
4233 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
4234 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
4235 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
4236 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
4239 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
4240 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
4241 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
4243 * Changes to Scheme functions
4245 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
4246 and disabled by default.
4248 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
4249 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
4250 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
4251 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
4253 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
4255 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
4257 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
4258 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
4260 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
4261 (read-set! keywords #f)
4263 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
4264 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
4265 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
4268 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
4269 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
4270 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
4273 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
4274 support for Scheme functions.
4276 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
4277 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
4278 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
4279 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
4282 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
4283 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
4284 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
4287 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
4288 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
4289 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
4292 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
4293 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
4294 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
4295 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
4296 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
4297 display the result as a prompt.
4298 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
4300 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
4301 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
4302 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
4305 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
4306 procedure of zero arguments.
4308 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
4309 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
4310 argument is bound in the current module.
4312 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
4313 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
4314 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
4315 public bindings into the current module.
4317 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
4318 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
4320 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
4321 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
4323 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
4324 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
4326 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
4327 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
4329 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
4330 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
4332 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
4333 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
4334 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
4335 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
4336 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
4338 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
4339 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
4340 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
4341 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
4343 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
4346 ** Changes to I/O functions
4348 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
4349 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
4350 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
4352 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
4353 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
4354 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
4356 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
4357 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
4359 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
4360 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
4361 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
4362 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
4364 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
4366 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
4367 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
4369 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
4370 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
4371 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
4372 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
4373 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
4376 'trim omit delimiter from result
4377 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
4378 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
4379 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
4381 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
4383 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
4384 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
4386 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
4387 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
4388 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
4389 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
4390 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
4392 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
4393 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
4394 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
4396 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
4397 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
4398 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
4399 above, and defaults to 'peek.
4401 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
4402 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
4404 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
4405 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
4407 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
4409 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
4410 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
4411 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
4412 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
4413 a delimiting character.
4414 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
4416 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
4417 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
4418 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
4419 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
4420 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
4421 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
4423 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
4424 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
4426 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
4427 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
4428 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
4430 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
4431 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
4432 the array to read and write.
4434 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
4435 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
4438 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
4440 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
4443 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
4444 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
4445 Values for COMMAND are:
4447 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
4448 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
4449 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
4450 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
4451 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
4452 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
4453 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
4454 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
4456 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
4458 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
4459 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
4460 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
4461 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
4462 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
4463 corresponding return set will be the same.
4465 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
4468 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
4469 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
4470 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
4471 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
4472 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
4473 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
4474 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
4475 special file being created.
4477 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
4478 clashing with various SCSH forks.
4480 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
4481 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
4482 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
4483 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
4484 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
4485 and originating address.
4487 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
4488 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
4489 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
4491 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
4494 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
4495 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
4498 (status:exit-val STATUS)
4499 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
4500 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
4501 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
4502 this function returns #f.
4504 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
4505 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
4506 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
4509 (status:term-sig STATUS)
4510 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
4511 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
4514 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
4515 a valid STATUS value.
4517 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
4519 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
4520 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
4522 Component Accessor Setter
4523 ========================= ============ ============
4524 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
4525 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
4526 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
4527 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
4528 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
4529 year tm:year set-tm:year
4530 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
4531 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
4532 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
4533 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
4534 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
4536 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
4537 describing the host system:
4540 ============================================== ================
4541 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
4542 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
4543 release level of the operating system utsname:release
4544 version level of the operating system utsname:version
4545 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
4547 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
4548 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
4549 system's user database:
4552 ====================== =================
4553 user name passwd:name
4554 user password passwd:passwd
4557 real name passwd:gecos
4558 home directory passwd:dir
4559 shell program passwd:shell
4561 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
4562 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
4563 system's group database:
4566 ======================= ============
4567 group name group:name
4568 group password group:passwd
4570 group members group:mem
4572 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
4573 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
4577 ========================= ===============
4578 official name of host hostent:name
4579 alias list hostent:aliases
4580 host address type hostent:addrtype
4581 length of address hostent:length
4582 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
4584 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
4585 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
4589 ========================= ===============
4590 official name of net netent:name
4591 alias list netent:aliases
4592 net number type netent:addrtype
4593 net number netent:net
4595 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
4596 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
4600 ========================= ===============
4601 official protocol name protoent:name
4602 alias list protoent:aliases
4603 protocol number protoent:proto
4605 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
4606 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
4610 ========================= ===============
4611 official service name servent:name
4612 alias list servent:aliases
4613 port number servent:port
4614 protocol to use servent:proto
4616 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
4617 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
4620 ======================================== ===============
4621 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
4622 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
4623 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
4624 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
4626 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
4627 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
4628 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
4630 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
4631 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
4633 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
4634 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
4636 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
4637 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
4639 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
4641 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
4643 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
4644 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
4645 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
4647 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
4648 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
4649 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
4650 return the remaining characters as a string.
4652 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
4653 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
4654 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
4656 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
4658 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4660 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
4663 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
4666 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
4667 and returns the array
4669 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
4670 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
4671 the user to interpret the data both ways.
4673 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4675 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
4676 symbol's value from C code:
4678 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
4679 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
4680 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
4681 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
4683 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
4684 without assigning them a value.
4686 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
4687 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
4688 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
4690 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
4691 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
4692 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
4694 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
4695 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
4697 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
4698 doesn't actually care about that.
4700 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
4701 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
4702 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
4704 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
4705 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
4706 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
4707 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
4708 which we have just created and initialized.
4710 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
4711 should one occur. We call it like this:
4712 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
4714 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
4715 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
4716 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
4717 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
4718 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
4719 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
4722 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
4723 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
4724 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
4725 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
4726 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
4727 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
4728 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
4731 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
4732 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
4733 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
4734 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
4735 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
4738 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
4739 scm_internal_catch, except:
4741 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
4742 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
4743 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
4744 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
4747 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
4748 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
4749 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
4751 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
4752 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
4753 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
4754 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
4757 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
4758 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
4759 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
4761 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
4762 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
4763 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
4764 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
4765 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
4767 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
4768 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
4769 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
4771 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
4772 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
4773 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
4775 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
4776 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
4778 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
4779 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
4780 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
4783 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
4784 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
4785 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
4786 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
4787 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
4788 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
4789 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
4792 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
4793 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
4795 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
4796 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
4797 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
4798 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
4799 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
4802 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
4803 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
4805 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
4806 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
4809 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
4810 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
4812 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
4815 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
4816 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
4817 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
4818 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
4819 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
4820 given the following arguments:
4822 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
4824 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
4826 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
4828 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
4831 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
4832 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
4833 command-line arguments.
4835 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
4836 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
4837 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
4838 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
4839 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
4840 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
4843 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
4846 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
4847 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
4849 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
4850 rearranged slightly. They are now:
4852 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
4853 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
4854 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
4855 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
4857 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
4858 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
4860 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
4861 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
4862 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
4863 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
4865 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
4866 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
4868 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
4869 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
4871 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
4873 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
4874 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
4875 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
4878 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
4879 returns a port instead of an FD object.
4881 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
4882 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
4887 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
4890 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
4892 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
4893 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
4894 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
4895 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
4897 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
4899 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
4901 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
4902 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
4903 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
4904 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
4905 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
4906 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
4907 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
4908 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
4909 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
4910 for more information.
4912 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
4913 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
4915 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
4916 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
4917 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
4918 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
4919 following two lines at the top of the file:
4921 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
4924 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
4925 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
4926 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
4928 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
4930 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
4932 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
4935 (display (car args))
4936 (if (pair? (cdr args))
4938 (loop (cdr args)))))
4941 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
4942 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
4943 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
4944 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
4945 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
4946 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
4950 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
4953 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
4956 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
4958 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
4959 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
4960 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
4961 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
4962 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
4965 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
4966 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
4967 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
4968 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
4969 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
4972 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
4975 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
4976 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
4977 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
4980 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
4981 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
4982 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
4984 to see a backtrace, and
4985 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
4986 to see them by default.
4990 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
4992 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
4994 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
4995 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
4998 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
4999 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
5000 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
5001 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
5004 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
5005 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
5006 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
5007 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
5008 functions which inspired them.
5010 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
5011 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
5015 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
5017 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
5019 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
5020 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
5023 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
5024 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
5025 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
5027 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
5028 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
5029 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
5030 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
5031 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
5033 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
5035 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
5036 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
5037 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
5040 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
5043 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
5045 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
5046 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
5047 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
5048 above should serve their purposes.
5050 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
5051 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
5052 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
5053 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
5055 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
5058 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
5059 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
5060 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
5061 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
5063 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
5064 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
5065 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
5066 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
5068 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
5069 for the `read' function.
5072 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
5073 to that of `integer?'.
5075 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
5076 use the R4RS names for these functions.
5078 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
5079 it simply returns the object's property list.
5081 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
5082 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
5083 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
5084 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
5086 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
5088 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
5091 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
5093 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
5094 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
5096 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
5098 void (*main_func) (),
5101 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
5102 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
5103 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
5104 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
5105 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
5107 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
5108 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
5109 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
5110 know which arguments have been processed.
5112 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
5113 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
5114 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
5115 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
5116 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
5118 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
5119 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
5120 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
5121 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
5122 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
5123 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
5124 people from making that mistake.
5126 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
5127 convenient ways to override these when desired.
5129 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
5131 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
5135 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
5138 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
5139 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
5140 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
5141 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
5144 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
5145 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
5146 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
5147 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
5150 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
5151 have been added to the Guile library.
5153 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
5154 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
5155 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
5158 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
5159 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
5160 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
5162 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
5163 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
5164 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
5165 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
5166 argument from the list.
5169 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
5172 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
5173 null-terminated string, and returns it.
5175 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
5176 to a Scheme port object.
5178 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
5179 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
5184 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
5186 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
5187 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
5188 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
5189 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
5190 code as a special datatype.
5192 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
5193 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
5194 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
5195 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
5196 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
5199 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
5200 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
5201 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
5202 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
5203 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
5205 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
5208 Copyright information:
5210 Copyright (C) 1996,1997 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
5212 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
5213 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
5214 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
5215 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
5217 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
5218 of this document, or of portions of it,
5219 under the above conditions, provided also that they
5220 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
5225 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"