1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes. -*- text -*-
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998 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 1.3:
9 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
11 ** New options interface: readline-options,
12 readline-enable, readline-disable, readline-set!
14 ** Command line history is now restored from and saved to file
16 If readline is used and the readline option `history-file' is enabled,
17 the command line history is read from file when the interpreter is
18 entered, and written to file on exit. The filename used can be
19 specified with the environment variable GUILE_HISTORY. Default file
20 name is "$HOME/.guile_history". Nothing special happens if errors
21 occur during read or write.
23 ** Command line history length can now be customized.
24 Command line history length is now controlled by the readline option
25 `history-length'. Default is 200 lines.
27 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
28 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
29 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
30 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
32 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
33 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
36 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
38 ** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
39 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
40 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
41 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
43 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
44 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
47 ** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
48 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
49 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
51 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
52 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
53 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
54 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
56 ** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
57 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
58 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
59 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
60 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
63 ** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
64 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
65 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
66 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
67 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
68 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
70 ** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
71 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
72 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
74 ** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
75 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
76 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
79 ** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
80 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
81 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
83 ** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
84 Added for compatibility with scsh.
86 ** New function: random N [STATE]
87 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
88 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
89 returned have a uniform distribution.
91 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
92 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
93 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
94 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
95 effect of the `random' operation.
97 ** New variable: *random-state*
98 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
99 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
100 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
101 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
102 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
105 ** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
106 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
107 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
108 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
109 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
111 ** New function: seed->random-state SEED
112 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
113 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
114 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
115 initialized using SEED.
117 ** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
118 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
119 range between 0 and 1.
121 ** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
122 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
123 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
124 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
125 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
126 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
127 or a uniform vector of doubles.
129 ** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
130 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
131 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
132 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
133 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
134 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
136 ** New function: random:normal [STATE]
137 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
138 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
139 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
141 ** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
142 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
143 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
144 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
146 ** New function: random:exp STATE
147 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
148 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
150 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
152 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
155 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
156 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
159 ** New function: make-guardian
160 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
161 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
162 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
163 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
164 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
166 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
167 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
168 one object if at all.
170 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
171 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
172 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
174 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
175 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
176 read again in last-in first-out order.
178 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
179 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
180 lists in serial order.
182 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
183 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
184 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
186 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
187 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
188 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
189 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
191 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
192 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
193 and #f if an error occured.
195 * Changes to the gh_ interface
199 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
200 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
202 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
203 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
207 * Changes to the scm_ interface
209 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
210 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
211 function pointers which together define the current random number
212 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
213 number library functions.
215 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
218 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
219 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
222 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
223 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
225 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
226 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
228 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
229 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
232 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
233 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
234 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
235 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
237 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
238 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
239 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
240 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
241 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
242 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
243 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
245 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
246 by libguile and the application.
248 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
249 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
250 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
251 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
253 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
254 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
256 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
257 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
258 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
260 ** Random number library functions
261 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
262 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
263 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
265 You can get the default random state using:
267 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
268 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
269 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
274 double x = scm_i_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
276 *** Function: double scm_i_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
277 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
279 *** Function: double scm_i_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
280 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
282 *** Function: double scm_i_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
283 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
285 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_random (unsigned long M, scm_rstate *STATE)
286 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
289 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
291 * Changes to the distribution
293 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
294 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
295 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
298 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
299 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
300 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
302 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
303 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
304 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
305 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
308 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
309 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
310 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
312 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
314 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
316 *** Function: batch-mode?
318 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
321 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
323 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
324 case has not been implemented.
326 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
327 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
328 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
331 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
332 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
334 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
336 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
338 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
340 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
341 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
344 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
345 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
346 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
347 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
350 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
352 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
353 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
354 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
355 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
356 find those libraries.
358 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
359 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
362 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
364 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
365 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
366 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
367 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
369 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
370 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
371 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
375 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
377 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
378 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
379 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
382 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
383 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
384 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
385 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
387 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
388 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
391 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
392 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
393 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
394 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
395 compiler where to find the libraries.
397 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
398 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
399 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
401 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
402 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
403 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
404 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
405 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
409 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
411 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
412 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
413 internationalization support.
415 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
416 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
417 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
418 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
419 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
421 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
422 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
423 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
424 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
425 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
427 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
428 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
429 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
432 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
434 ** New function: add-history STRING
435 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
436 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
437 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
439 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
441 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
442 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
443 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
446 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
447 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
448 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
450 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
452 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
455 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
456 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
459 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
460 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
461 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
462 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
463 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
464 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
466 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
467 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
468 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
469 of the form mentioned above.
471 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
472 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
473 returned in the special `rest' list.
475 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
476 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
478 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
480 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
482 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
484 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
485 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
486 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
487 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
488 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
489 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
490 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
491 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
494 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
496 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
498 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
499 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
502 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
503 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
504 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
508 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
509 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
510 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
511 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
512 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
513 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
514 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
515 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
518 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
520 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
521 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
522 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
524 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
526 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
527 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
529 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
530 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
531 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
533 Why do we have this function?
534 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
535 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
536 primitive, and display it differently, and
537 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
538 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
541 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
542 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
545 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
546 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
547 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
548 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
550 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
551 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
554 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
555 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
557 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
559 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
560 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
561 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
562 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
563 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
564 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
565 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
568 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
570 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
571 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
573 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
574 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
575 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
576 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
577 properly continue the print chain.
579 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
580 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
581 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
582 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
583 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
584 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
585 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
586 print-state, it is simply ignored.
588 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
589 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
590 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
591 safest to not check for these pairs.
593 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
594 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
595 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
596 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
598 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
600 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
601 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
603 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
605 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
607 ** There is now a fourth (optional) argument to make-vtable-vtable and
608 make-struct when constructing new types (vtables). This argument
609 initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
611 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
612 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
613 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
615 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
616 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
617 the following functions and macros:
621 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
622 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
623 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
624 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
625 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
629 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
631 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
632 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
634 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
635 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
637 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
639 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
640 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
641 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
642 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
643 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
644 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
645 modified by `with-fluids*'.
647 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
649 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
650 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
651 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
652 should evaluate to a fluid.
654 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
656 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
657 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
658 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
659 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
660 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
662 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
665 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
667 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
669 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
671 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
674 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
675 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
676 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
677 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
678 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
681 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
682 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
683 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
685 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
686 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
687 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
689 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
690 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
691 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
692 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
694 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
695 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
696 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
697 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
699 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
700 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
701 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
702 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
704 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
705 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
706 their revealed counts set to zero.
708 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
709 Returns an integer file descriptor.
711 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
712 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
714 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
715 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
717 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
718 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
719 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
721 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
722 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
723 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
725 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
726 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
727 default environment inherited by child processes.
729 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
730 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
731 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
733 The return value is unspecified.
735 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
736 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
737 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
738 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
739 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
741 The return value is unspecified.
743 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
744 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
752 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
753 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
756 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
759 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
760 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
761 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
763 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
764 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
765 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
766 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
769 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
770 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
772 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
773 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
774 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
775 the `environ' procedure.
777 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
778 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
781 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
782 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
784 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
785 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
786 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
787 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
790 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
791 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
792 return a selected component:
795 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
799 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
802 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
806 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
807 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
811 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
812 terminated child processes.
814 ** Removed: list-length
815 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
816 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
818 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
820 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
822 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
824 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
825 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
826 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
827 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
829 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
830 extra complexity it introduces.
832 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
833 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
835 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
836 variable to any non-empty value.
838 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
839 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
841 * Changes to the gh_ interface
843 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
844 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
846 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
848 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
849 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
851 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
853 ** vector handling routines
855 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
856 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
857 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
858 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
859 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
861 ** pair and list routines
863 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
866 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
868 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
871 * Changes to the scm_ interface
873 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
875 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
876 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
877 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
878 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
879 site-specific initialization code.
881 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
882 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
883 initialization processes.
885 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
886 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
887 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
888 initialized properly.
890 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
891 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
892 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
894 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
895 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
896 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
897 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
898 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
900 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
902 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
903 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
904 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
905 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
906 objects the smob refers to get marked.
908 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
909 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
910 which look like this:
913 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
915 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
916 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
919 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
920 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
923 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
925 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
926 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
927 you will need to change your functions slightly.
929 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
930 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
931 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
932 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
933 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
935 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
936 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
938 int (*free) (SCM port);
939 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
940 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
941 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
945 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
946 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
947 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
949 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
952 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
953 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
954 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
956 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
957 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
958 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
961 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
965 struct timeval *timeout);
967 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
968 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
969 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
970 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
971 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
972 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
974 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
975 scm_catch_body_t body,
977 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
980 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
981 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
982 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
983 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
984 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
985 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
987 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
989 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
992 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
993 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
994 spawning threads from application C code.
996 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
997 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
998 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
999 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
1000 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
1001 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
1003 ** Removed functions:
1005 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
1006 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
1008 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
1010 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
1011 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
1013 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
1015 ** mbstrings are now removed
1017 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
1018 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
1020 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
1022 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
1023 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
1024 their new names and arguments:
1026 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
1027 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
1028 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
1029 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
1032 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
1034 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
1036 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
1039 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
1041 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
1042 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
1043 pass a #f arg to catch.
1045 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
1047 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
1048 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
1051 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
1052 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
1053 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
1054 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
1055 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
1056 reclaim its storage.
1058 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
1059 worrying that some other function you call will call
1060 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
1061 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
1062 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
1063 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
1066 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
1068 * Changes to the distribution
1070 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
1071 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
1074 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
1075 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
1077 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
1078 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
1080 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
1082 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
1083 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
1084 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
1086 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
1088 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
1089 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
1090 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
1091 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
1092 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
1093 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
1095 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
1096 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
1097 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
1100 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
1101 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
1102 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
1103 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
1105 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
1106 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
1107 libraries to your link command:
1109 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
1110 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
1111 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
1112 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
1114 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
1115 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
1116 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
1118 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1120 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
1121 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
1124 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
1126 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
1127 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
1128 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
1129 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
1130 searched is system dependent.
1132 (dynamic-object? VAL)
1134 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
1136 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
1138 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
1139 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
1141 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
1143 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
1144 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
1145 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
1146 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
1147 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
1150 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
1152 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
1153 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
1154 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
1155 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
1156 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
1158 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
1160 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
1161 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
1163 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
1165 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
1166 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
1167 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
1170 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
1172 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
1173 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
1174 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
1175 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
1177 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
1178 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
1180 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
1182 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
1183 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
1185 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
1187 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
1188 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
1196 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
1198 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
1199 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
1200 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
1201 a more informative way.
1203 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
1204 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
1205 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
1206 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
1207 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
1208 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
1210 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
1211 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
1214 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
1215 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
1216 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
1219 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
1220 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
1221 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
1222 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
1223 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
1224 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
1226 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
1227 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
1228 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
1229 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
1232 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
1233 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
1234 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
1235 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
1236 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
1237 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
1239 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
1240 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
1241 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
1242 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
1243 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
1245 *** regexp functions
1247 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
1248 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
1249 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
1251 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
1252 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
1253 with SCSH regular expressions.
1255 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
1256 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
1257 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
1258 position of STR at which to begin matching.
1260 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
1261 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
1262 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
1263 `string-match' returns `#f'.
1265 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
1266 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
1267 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
1268 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
1269 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
1270 match strings against the compiled regexp.
1272 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
1273 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
1274 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
1275 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
1276 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
1278 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
1280 **** Constant: regexp/extended
1281 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
1282 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
1283 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
1285 **** Constant: regexp/icase
1286 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
1287 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
1289 **** Constant: regexp/newline
1290 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
1292 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
1295 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
1296 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
1297 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
1299 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
1300 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
1301 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
1303 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
1304 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
1305 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
1306 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
1307 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
1310 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
1312 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
1313 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
1314 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
1315 used when different portions of a string are passed to
1316 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
1317 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
1319 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
1320 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
1321 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
1323 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
1324 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
1327 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
1328 and replace them with the contents of another string.
1330 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
1331 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
1332 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
1333 may be one of the following arguments:
1335 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
1337 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
1339 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
1340 the regexp match is written.
1342 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
1343 following the regexp match is written.
1345 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
1346 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
1349 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
1350 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
1351 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
1352 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
1353 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
1354 which should be matched against this regular expression.
1356 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
1359 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
1360 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
1361 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
1362 written out to PORT.
1364 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
1365 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
1366 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
1367 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
1368 will return after processing a single match.
1370 *** Match Structures
1372 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
1373 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
1374 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
1375 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
1376 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
1377 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
1380 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
1381 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
1382 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
1383 information about the original target string that was matched against a
1384 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
1386 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
1387 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
1388 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
1390 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
1391 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
1392 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
1393 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
1394 number N did not match, return `#f'.
1396 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
1397 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
1399 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
1400 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
1402 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
1403 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
1405 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
1406 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
1408 **** Function: match:count MATCH
1409 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
1410 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
1411 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
1413 **** Function: match:string MATCH
1414 Return the original TARGET string.
1416 *** Backslash Escapes
1418 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
1419 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
1420 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
1421 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
1422 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
1423 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
1425 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
1426 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
1427 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
1428 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
1429 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
1430 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
1431 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
1432 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
1434 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
1435 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
1436 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
1437 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
1438 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
1439 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
1440 each match a single backslash in the target string.
1442 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
1443 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
1444 return the resulting string.
1446 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
1447 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
1448 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
1449 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
1450 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
1451 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
1452 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
1453 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
1454 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
1455 translated to the single character `*'.
1457 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
1458 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
1459 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
1460 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
1461 consecutive backslashes:
1463 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
1465 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
1466 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
1467 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
1469 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
1470 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
1471 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
1472 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
1473 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
1474 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
1476 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
1478 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
1479 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
1480 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
1481 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
1482 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
1483 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
1484 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
1485 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
1486 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
1487 cumbersome escape syntax.
1489 * Changes to the gh_ interface
1491 * Changes to the scm_ interface
1493 * Changes to system call interfaces:
1495 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
1498 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
1500 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
1502 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
1505 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
1506 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
1507 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
1508 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
1509 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
1511 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
1512 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
1513 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
1514 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
1515 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
1516 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
1517 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
1520 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
1521 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
1522 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
1525 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
1526 `force-output' on every port open for output.
1528 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
1529 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
1530 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
1531 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
1532 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
1533 installed, you can say:
1535 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
1538 * Changes to the scm_ interface
1540 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
1541 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
1542 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
1543 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
1544 new dynamic roots and threads.
1547 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
1549 * Changes to the distribution.
1551 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
1553 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
1554 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
1555 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
1556 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
1557 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
1558 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
1559 programming language. These are packaged together because the
1560 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
1562 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
1565 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
1566 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
1571 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1573 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
1574 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
1576 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
1577 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
1578 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
1579 the (command-line) function.
1580 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
1581 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
1582 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
1584 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
1585 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
1586 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
1587 command line arguments
1588 -ds do -s script at this point
1589 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
1590 -h, --help display this help and exit
1591 -v, --version display version information and exit
1592 \ read arguments from following script lines
1594 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
1595 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
1597 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
1600 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
1604 (main (command-line))
1606 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
1608 ekko a speckled gecko
1610 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
1611 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
1612 following list of command-line arguments:
1614 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
1616 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
1617 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
1618 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
1619 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
1620 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
1622 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
1624 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
1626 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
1627 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
1630 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
1631 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
1632 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
1633 SCSH) for circumventing them.
1635 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
1636 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
1637 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
1638 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
1640 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
1644 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
1648 If the user invokes this script as follows:
1650 ekko a speckled gecko
1652 Unix expands this into
1654 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
1656 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
1657 read from the second line of the script, producing:
1659 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
1661 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
1662 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
1664 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
1665 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
1666 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
1667 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
1668 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
1669 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
1670 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
1671 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
1672 it only terminates the argument list.)
1673 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
1674 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
1675 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
1676 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
1677 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
1678 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
1679 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
1680 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
1682 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
1684 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
1685 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
1686 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
1687 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
1688 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
1690 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
1691 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
1692 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
1694 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
1696 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
1697 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
1698 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
1699 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
1702 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
1703 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
1704 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
1706 * Changes to Scheme functions
1708 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
1709 and disabled by default.
1711 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
1712 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
1713 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
1714 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
1716 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
1718 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
1720 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
1721 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
1723 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
1724 (read-set! keywords #f)
1726 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
1727 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
1728 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
1731 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
1732 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
1733 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
1736 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
1737 support for Scheme functions.
1739 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
1740 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
1741 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
1742 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
1745 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
1746 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
1747 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
1750 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
1751 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
1752 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
1755 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
1756 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
1757 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
1758 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
1759 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
1760 display the result as a prompt.
1761 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
1763 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
1764 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
1765 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
1768 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
1769 procedure of zero arguments.
1771 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
1772 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
1773 argument is bound in the current module.
1775 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
1776 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
1777 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
1778 public bindings into the current module.
1780 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
1781 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
1783 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
1784 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
1786 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
1787 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
1789 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
1790 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
1792 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
1793 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
1795 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
1796 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
1797 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
1798 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
1799 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
1801 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
1802 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
1803 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
1804 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
1806 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
1809 ** Changes to I/O functions
1811 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
1812 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
1813 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
1815 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
1816 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
1817 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
1819 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
1820 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
1822 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
1823 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
1824 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
1825 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
1827 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
1829 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
1830 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
1832 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
1833 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
1834 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
1835 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
1836 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
1839 'trim omit delimiter from result
1840 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
1841 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
1842 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
1844 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
1846 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
1847 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
1849 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
1850 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
1851 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
1852 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
1853 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
1855 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
1856 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
1857 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
1859 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
1860 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
1861 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
1862 above, and defaults to 'peek.
1864 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
1865 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
1867 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
1868 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
1870 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
1872 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
1873 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
1874 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
1875 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
1876 a delimiting character.
1877 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
1879 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
1880 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
1881 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
1882 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
1883 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
1884 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
1886 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
1887 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
1889 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
1890 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
1891 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
1893 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
1894 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
1895 the array to read and write.
1897 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
1898 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
1901 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
1903 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
1906 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
1907 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
1908 Values for COMMAND are:
1910 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
1911 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
1912 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
1913 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
1914 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
1915 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
1916 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
1917 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
1919 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
1921 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
1922 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
1923 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
1924 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
1925 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
1926 corresponding return set will be the same.
1928 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
1931 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
1932 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
1933 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
1934 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
1935 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
1936 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
1937 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
1938 special file being created.
1940 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
1941 clashing with various SCSH forks.
1943 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
1944 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
1945 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
1946 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
1947 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
1948 and originating address.
1950 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
1951 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
1952 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
1954 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
1957 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
1958 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
1961 (status:exit-val STATUS)
1962 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
1963 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
1964 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
1965 this function returns #f.
1967 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
1968 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
1969 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
1972 (status:term-sig STATUS)
1973 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
1974 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
1977 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
1978 a valid STATUS value.
1980 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
1982 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
1983 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
1985 Component Accessor Setter
1986 ========================= ============ ============
1987 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
1988 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
1989 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
1990 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
1991 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
1992 year tm:year set-tm:year
1993 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
1994 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
1995 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
1996 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
1997 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
1999 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
2000 describing the host system:
2003 ============================================== ================
2004 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
2005 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
2006 release level of the operating system utsname:release
2007 version level of the operating system utsname:version
2008 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
2010 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
2011 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
2012 system's user database:
2015 ====================== =================
2016 user name passwd:name
2017 user password passwd:passwd
2020 real name passwd:gecos
2021 home directory passwd:dir
2022 shell program passwd:shell
2024 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
2025 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
2026 system's group database:
2029 ======================= ============
2030 group name group:name
2031 group password group:passwd
2033 group members group:mem
2035 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
2036 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
2040 ========================= ===============
2041 official name of host hostent:name
2042 alias list hostent:aliases
2043 host address type hostent:addrtype
2044 length of address hostent:length
2045 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
2047 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
2048 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
2052 ========================= ===============
2053 official name of net netent:name
2054 alias list netent:aliases
2055 net number type netent:addrtype
2056 net number netent:net
2058 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
2059 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
2063 ========================= ===============
2064 official protocol name protoent:name
2065 alias list protoent:aliases
2066 protocol number protoent:proto
2068 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
2069 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
2073 ========================= ===============
2074 official service name servent:name
2075 alias list servent:aliases
2076 port number servent:port
2077 protocol to use servent:proto
2079 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
2080 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
2083 ======================================== ===============
2084 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
2085 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
2086 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
2087 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
2089 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
2090 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
2091 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
2093 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
2094 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
2096 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
2097 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
2099 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
2100 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
2102 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
2104 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
2106 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
2107 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
2108 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
2110 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
2111 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
2112 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
2113 return the remaining characters as a string.
2115 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
2116 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
2117 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
2119 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
2121 * Changes to the gh_ interface
2123 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
2126 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
2129 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
2130 and returns the array
2132 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
2133 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
2134 the user to interpret the data both ways.
2136 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2138 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
2139 symbol's value from C code:
2141 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
2142 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
2143 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
2144 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
2146 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
2147 without assigning them a value.
2149 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
2150 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
2151 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
2153 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
2154 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
2155 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
2157 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
2158 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
2160 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
2161 doesn't actually care about that.
2163 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
2164 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
2165 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
2167 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
2168 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
2169 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
2170 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
2171 which we have just created and initialized.
2173 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
2174 should one occur. We call it like this:
2175 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
2177 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
2178 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
2179 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
2180 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
2181 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
2182 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
2185 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
2186 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
2187 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
2188 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
2189 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
2190 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
2191 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
2194 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
2195 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
2196 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
2197 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
2198 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
2201 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
2202 scm_internal_catch, except:
2204 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
2205 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
2206 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
2207 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
2210 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
2211 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
2212 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
2214 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
2215 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
2216 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
2217 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
2220 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
2221 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
2222 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
2224 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
2225 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
2226 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
2227 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
2228 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
2230 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
2231 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
2232 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
2234 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
2235 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
2236 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
2238 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
2239 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
2241 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
2242 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
2243 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
2246 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
2247 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
2248 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
2249 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
2250 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
2251 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
2252 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
2255 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
2256 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
2258 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
2259 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
2260 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
2261 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
2262 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
2265 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
2266 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
2268 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
2269 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
2272 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
2273 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
2275 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
2278 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
2279 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
2280 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
2281 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
2282 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
2283 given the following arguments:
2285 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
2287 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
2289 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
2291 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
2294 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
2295 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
2296 command-line arguments.
2298 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
2299 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
2300 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
2301 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
2302 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
2303 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
2306 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
2309 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
2310 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
2312 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
2313 rearranged slightly. They are now:
2315 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
2316 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
2317 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
2318 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
2320 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
2321 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
2323 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
2324 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
2325 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
2326 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
2328 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
2329 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
2331 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
2332 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
2334 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
2336 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
2337 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
2338 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
2341 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
2342 returns a port instead of an FD object.
2344 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
2345 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
2350 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
2353 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
2355 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
2356 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
2357 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
2358 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
2360 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
2362 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
2364 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
2365 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
2366 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
2367 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
2368 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
2369 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
2370 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
2371 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
2372 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
2373 for more information.
2375 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
2376 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
2378 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
2379 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
2380 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
2381 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
2382 following two lines at the top of the file:
2384 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
2387 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
2388 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
2389 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
2391 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
2393 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
2395 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
2398 (display (car args))
2399 (if (pair? (cdr args))
2401 (loop (cdr args)))))
2404 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
2405 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
2406 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
2407 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
2408 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
2409 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
2413 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
2416 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
2419 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
2421 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
2422 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
2423 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
2424 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
2425 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
2428 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
2429 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
2430 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
2431 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
2432 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
2435 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
2438 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
2439 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
2440 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
2443 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
2444 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
2445 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
2447 to see a backtrace, and
2448 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
2449 to see them by default.
2453 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
2455 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
2457 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
2458 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
2461 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
2462 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
2463 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
2464 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
2467 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
2468 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
2469 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
2470 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
2471 functions which inspired them.
2473 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
2474 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
2478 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
2480 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
2482 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
2483 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
2486 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
2487 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
2488 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
2490 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
2491 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
2492 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
2493 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
2494 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
2496 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
2498 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
2499 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
2500 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
2503 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
2506 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
2508 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
2509 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
2510 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
2511 above should serve their purposes.
2513 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
2514 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
2515 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
2516 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
2518 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
2521 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
2522 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
2523 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
2524 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
2526 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
2527 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
2528 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
2529 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
2531 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
2532 for the `read' function.
2535 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
2536 to that of `integer?'.
2538 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
2539 use the R4RS names for these functions.
2541 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
2542 it simply returns the object's property list.
2544 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
2545 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
2546 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
2547 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
2549 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
2551 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
2554 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
2556 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
2557 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
2559 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
2561 void (*main_func) (),
2564 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
2565 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
2566 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
2567 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
2568 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
2570 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
2571 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
2572 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
2573 know which arguments have been processed.
2575 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
2576 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
2577 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
2578 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
2579 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
2581 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
2582 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
2583 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
2584 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
2585 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
2586 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
2587 people from making that mistake.
2589 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
2590 convenient ways to override these when desired.
2592 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
2594 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
2598 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
2601 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
2602 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
2603 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
2604 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
2607 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
2608 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
2609 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
2610 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
2613 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
2614 have been added to the Guile library.
2616 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
2617 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
2618 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
2621 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
2622 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
2623 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
2625 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
2626 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
2627 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
2628 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
2629 argument from the list.
2632 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
2635 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
2636 null-terminated string, and returns it.
2638 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
2639 to a Scheme port object.
2641 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
2642 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
2647 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
2649 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
2650 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
2651 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
2652 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
2653 code as a special datatype.
2655 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
2656 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
2657 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
2658 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
2659 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
2662 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
2663 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
2664 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
2665 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
2666 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
2668 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
2671 Copyright information:
2673 Copyright (C) 1996,1997 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2675 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
2676 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
2677 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
2678 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
2680 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
2681 of this document, or of portions of it,
2682 under the above conditions, provided also that they
2683 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
2688 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"