1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
8 Note: During the 1.9 series, we will keep an incremental NEWS for the
9 latest prerelease, and a full NEWS corresponding to 1.8 -> 2.0.
11 Changes in 1.9.15 (since the 1.9.14 prerelease):
13 ** Formally deprecate omission of port to `format'
15 It used to be that you could omit passing a port to `format', in some
16 cases. This still works, but has been formally deprecated.
20 Noah Lavine and Kan-Ru Chen noticed and fixed a number of embarrassing
21 bugs in object creation, unicode literals in strings, empty function
22 bodies, non-breaking whitespace, and numeric literals.
24 ** `(web ...)' changes
26 *** `parse-uri', `unparse-uri' now called `string->uri', `uri->string'
28 *** `uri-decode' takes `#:encoding' keyword argument, not `#:charset'
30 *** HTTP header representation change
32 Guile properly garbage-collects symbols, so there's no need to read some
33 headers as symbols and some as strings: all header names are symbols
34 now. The same goes for many key-value constructs in headers. Guile
35 parses the challenge/authentication headers now, as well. Header decl
36 objects are no longer exposed to the user.
38 *** Request and response bodies are always bytevectors
40 Reading bodies as latin-1 strings was a cute hack, but not general, so
41 Guile's only official fetch-me-the-body procedures return bytevectors
44 ** New procedures: scm_{to,from}_{utf8,latin1}_symbol{n,}
45 ** New procedures: scm_{to,from}_{utf8,utf32,latin1}_symbol{n,}
47 These new procedures convert to and from string representations in
50 Basically, continue to use locale encoding for user input, user output,
51 or interacting with the C library. Use latin1 for ASCII, and for
52 literals in source code. Use utf8 for interaction with modern libraries
53 which deal in UTF-8. Use utf32 for interaction with utf32-using
54 libraries. Otherwise use scm_to_stringn or scm_from_stringn with a
57 Also, scm_from_latin1_symbol is quite a bit faster now.
59 ** Documentation updates
61 The GOOPS manual saw a lot of work, as well as documentation for the
64 ** Guile uses iconv directly for reading from and writing to ports.
66 [What does this mean for users?]
68 ** Source files default to UTF-8.
70 If source files do not specify their encoding via a `coding:' block,
71 the default encoding is UTF-8, instead of being taken from the current
76 Thanks to Mark Harig for many suggestions regarding the manual page,
77 which is getting better.
79 ** Interactive Guile installs the current locale.
81 Instead of leaving the user in the "C" locale, running the Guile REPL
82 installs the current locale. [FIXME xref?]
84 ** `recv!', `recvfrom!', `send', `sendto' now deal in bytevectors
86 These socket procedures now take bytevectors as arguments, instead of
87 strings. There is some deprecated string support, however.
89 ** New foreign API: `define-wrapped-pointer-type', `pointer?'
91 See "Foreign Types", for more.
93 ** Changes and bugfixes in numerics code
95 *** Added two new sets of fast quotient and remainder operators
97 Added two new sets of fast quotient and remainder operator pairs with
98 different semantics than the R5RS operators. They support not only
99 integers, but all reals, including exact rationals and inexact
100 floating point numbers.
102 These procedures accept two real numbers N and D, where the divisor D
103 must be non-zero. `euclidean-quotient' returns the integer Q and
104 `euclidean-remainder' returns the real R such that N = Q*D + R and
105 0 <= R < |D|. `euclidean/' returns both Q and R, and is more
106 efficient than computing each separately. Note that when D > 0,
107 `euclidean-quotient' returns floor(N/D), and when D < 0 it returns
110 `centered-quotient', `centered-remainder', and `centered/' are similar
111 except that the range of remainders is -abs(D/2) <= R < abs(D/2), and
112 `centered-quotient' rounds N/D to the nearest integer.
114 Note that these operators are equivalent to the R6RS integer division
115 operators `div', `mod', `div-and-mod', `div0', `mod0', and
118 *** `eqv?' and `equal?' now compare numbers equivalently
120 scm_equal_p `equal?' now behaves equivalently to scm_eqv_p `eqv?' for
121 numeric values, per R5RS. Previously, equal? worked differently,
122 e.g. `(equal? 0.0 -0.0)' returned #t but `(eqv? 0.0 -0.0)' returned #f,
123 and `(equal? +nan.0 +nan.0)' returned #f but `(eqv? +nan.0 +nan.0)'
126 *** `(equal? +nan.0 +nan.0)' now returns #t
128 Previously, `(equal? +nan.0 +nan.0)' returned #f, although
129 `(let ((x +nan.0)) (equal? x x))' and `(eqv? +nan.0 +nan.0)'
130 both returned #t. R5RS requires that `equal?' behave like
131 `eqv?' when comparing numbers.
133 *** `expt' and `integer-expt' changes when the base is 0
135 While `(expt 0 0)' is still 1, and `(expt 0 N)' for N > 0 is still
136 zero, `(expt 0 N)' for N < 0 is now a NaN value, and likewise for
137 integer-expt. This is more correct, and conforming to R6RS, but seems
138 to be incompatible with R5RS, which would return 0 for all non-zero
141 *** `expt' and `integer-expt' are more generic, less strict
143 When raising to an exact non-negative integer exponent, `expt' and
144 `integer-expt' are now able to exponentiate any object that can be
145 multiplied using `*'. They can also raise an object to an exact
146 negative integer power if its reciprocal can be taken using `/'.
147 In order to allow this, the type of the first argument is no longer
148 checked when raising to an exact integer power. If the exponent is 0
149 or 1, the first parameter is not manipulated at all, and need not
150 even support multiplication.
152 *** Infinities are no longer integers, nor rationals
154 scm_integer_p `integer?' and scm_rational_p `rational?' now return #f
155 for infinities, per R6RS. Previously they returned #t for real
156 infinities. The real infinities and NaNs are still considered real by
157 scm_real `real?' however, per R6RS.
159 *** NaNs are no longer rationals
161 scm_rational_p `rational?' now returns #f for NaN values, per R6RS.
162 Previously it returned #t for real NaN values. They are still
163 considered real by scm_real `real?' however, per R6RS.
165 *** `inf?' and `nan?' now throw exceptions for non-reals
167 The domain of `inf?' and `nan?' is the real numbers. Guile now signals
168 an error when a non-real number or non-number is passed to these
169 procedures. (Note that NaNs _are_ considered numbers by scheme, despite
172 *** `rationalize' bugfixes and changes
174 Fixed bugs in scm_rationalize `rationalize'. Previously, it returned
175 exact integers unmodified, although that was incorrect if the epsilon
176 was at least 1 or inexact, e.g. (rationalize 4 1) should return 3 per
177 R5RS and R6RS, but previously it returned 4. It also now handles
178 cases involving infinities and NaNs properly, per R6RS.
180 *** New procedure: `finite?'
182 Add scm_finite_p `finite?' from R6RS to guile core, which returns #t
183 if and only if its argument is neither infinite nor a NaN. Note that
184 this is not the same as (not (inf? x)) or (not (infinite? x)), since
185 NaNs are neither finite nor infinite.
187 *** R6RS base library changes
189 **** `div', `mod', `div-and-mod', `div0', `mod0', `div0-and-mod0'
191 Efficient versions of these R6RS division operators are now supported.
192 See the NEWS entry entitled `Added two new sets of fast quotient and
193 remainder operators' for more information.
195 **** `infinite?' changes
197 `infinite?' and `finite?' now throw exceptions for non-numbers. (Note
198 that NaNs _are_ considered numbers by scheme, despite their name).
200 **** `real-valued?', `rational-valued?' and `integer-valued?' changes
202 These predicates are now implemented in accordance with R6RS.
204 ** New reader option: `hungry-eol-escapes'
206 Guile's string syntax is more compatible with R6RS when the
207 `hungry-eol-escapes' option is enabled. See "String Syntax" in the
208 manual, for more information.
210 ** And of course, the usual collection of bugfixes
212 Interested users should see the ChangeLog for more information.
216 Changes in 1.9.x (since the 1.8.x series):
218 * New modules (see the manual for details)
220 ** `(srfi srfi-18)', more sophisticated multithreading support
221 ** `(srfi srfi-27)', sources of random bits
222 ** `(srfi srfi-38)', External Representation for Data With Shared Structure
223 ** `(srfi srfi-42)', eager comprehensions
224 ** `(srfi srfi-45)', primitives for expressing iterative lazy algorithms
225 ** `(srfi srfi-67)', compare procedures
226 ** `(ice-9 i18n)', internationalization support
227 ** `(ice-9 futures)', fine-grain parallelism
228 ** `(rnrs bytevectors)', the R6RS bytevector API
229 ** `(rnrs io ports)', a subset of the R6RS I/O port API
230 ** `(system xref)', a cross-referencing facility (FIXME undocumented)
231 ** `(ice-9 vlist)', lists with constant-time random access; hash lists
232 ** `(system foreign)', foreign function interface
233 ** `(sxml match)', a pattern matcher for SXML
234 ** `(srfi srfi-9 gnu)', extensions to the SRFI-9 record library
235 ** `(system vm coverage)', a line-by-line code coverage library
236 ** `(web uri)', URI data type, parser, and unparser
237 ** `(web http)', HTTP header parsers and unparsers
238 ** `(web request)', HTTP request data type, reader, and writer
239 ** `(web response)', HTTP response data type, reader, and writer
240 ** `(web server)', Generic HTTP server
241 ** `(ice-9 poll)', a poll wrapper
242 ** `(web server http)', HTTP-over-TCP web server implementation
244 ** Replaced `(ice-9 match)' with Alex Shinn's compatible, hygienic matcher.
246 Guile's copy of Andrew K. Wright's `match' library has been replaced by
247 a compatible hygienic implementation by Alex Shinn. It is now
248 documented, see "Pattern Matching" in the manual.
250 Compared to Andrew K. Wright's `match', the new `match' lacks
251 `match-define', `match:error-control', `match:set-error-control',
252 `match:error', `match:set-error', and all structure-related procedures.
254 ** Imported statprof, SSAX, and texinfo modules from Guile-Lib
256 The statprof statistical profiler, the SSAX XML toolkit, and the texinfo
257 toolkit from Guile-Lib have been imported into Guile proper. See
258 "Standard Library" in the manual for more details.
260 ** Integration of lalr-scm, a parser generator
262 Guile has included Dominique Boucher's fine `lalr-scm' parser generator
263 as `(system base lalr)'. See "LALR(1) Parsing" in the manual, for more
266 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
268 ** Guile now can compile Scheme to bytecode for a custom virtual machine.
270 Compiled code loads much faster than Scheme source code, and runs around
271 3 or 4 times as fast, generating much less garbage in the process.
273 ** Evaluating Scheme code does not use the C stack.
275 Besides when compiling Guile itself, Guile no longer uses a recursive C
276 function as an evaluator. This obviates the need to check the C stack
277 pointer for overflow. Continuations still capture the C stack, however.
279 ** New environment variables: GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH,
280 GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH
282 GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is for compiled files what GUILE_LOAD_PATH is
283 for source files. It is a different path, however, because compiled
284 files are architecture-specific. GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is like
287 ** New read-eval-print loop (REPL) implementation
289 Running Guile with no arguments drops the user into the new REPL. See
290 "Using Guile Interactively" in the manual, for more information.
292 ** Remove old Emacs interface
294 Guile had an unused `--emacs' command line argument that was supposed to
295 help when running Guile inside Emacs. This option has been removed, and
296 the helper functions `named-module-use!' and `load-emacs-interface' have
299 ** Add `(system repl server)' module and `--listen' command-line argument
301 The `(system repl server)' module exposes procedures to listen on
302 sockets for connections, and serve REPLs to those clients. The --listen
303 command-line argument allows any Guile program to thus be remotely
306 See "Invoking Guile" for more information on `--listen'.
308 ** Command line additions
310 The guile binary now supports a new switch "-x", which can be used to
311 extend the list of filename extensions tried when loading files
314 ** New reader options: `square-brackets' and `r6rs-hex-escapes'
316 The reader supports a new option (changeable via `read-options'),
317 `square-brackets', which instructs it to interpret square brackets as
318 parentheses. This option is on by default.
320 When the new `r6rs-hex-escapes' reader option is enabled, the reader
321 will recognize string escape sequences as defined in R6RS. R6RS string
322 escape sequences are incompatible with Guile's existing escapes, though,
323 so this option is off by default.
325 ** Function profiling and tracing at the REPL
327 The `,profile FORM' REPL meta-command can now be used to statistically
328 profile execution of a form, to see which functions are taking the most
329 time. See `,help profile' for more information.
331 Similarly, `,trace FORM' traces all function applications that occur
332 during the execution of `FORM'. See `,help trace' for more information.
334 ** Recursive debugging REPL on error
336 When Guile sees an error at the REPL, instead of saving the stack, Guile
337 will directly enter a recursive REPL in the dynamic context of the
338 error. See "Error Handling" in the manual, for more information.
340 A recursive REPL is the same as any other REPL, except that it
341 has been augmented with debugging information, so that one can inspect
342 the context of the error. The debugger has been integrated with the REPL
343 via a set of debugging meta-commands.
345 For example, one may access a backtrace with `,backtrace' (or
346 `,bt'). See "Interactive Debugging" in the manual, for more
349 ** New `guile-tools' commands: `compile', `disassemble'
351 Pass the `--help' command-line option to these commands for more
354 ** Guile now adds its install prefix to the LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH
356 Users may now install Guile to nonstandard prefixes and just run
357 `/path/to/bin/guile', instead of also having to set LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH to
358 include `/path/to/lib'.
360 ** Guile's Emacs integration is now more keyboard-friendly
362 Backtraces may now be disclosed with the keyboard in addition to the
365 ** Load path change: search in version-specific paths before site paths
367 When looking for a module, Guile now searches first in Guile's
368 version-specific path (the library path), *then* in the site dir. This
369 allows Guile's copy of SSAX to override any Guile-Lib copy the user has
370 installed. Also it should cut the number of `stat' system calls by half,
373 ** Value history in the REPL on by default
375 By default, the REPL will save computed values in variables like `$1',
376 `$2', and the like. There are programmatic and interactive interfaces to
377 control this. See "Value History" in the manual, for more information.
379 ** Readline tab completion for arguments
381 When readline is enabled, tab completion works for arguments too, not
382 just for the operator position.
384 ** Expression-oriented readline history
386 Guile's readline history now tries to operate on expressions instead of
387 input lines. Let us know what you think!
389 ** Interactive Guile follows GNU conventions
391 As recommended by the GPL, Guile now shows a brief copyright and
392 warranty disclaimer on startup, along with pointers to more information.
394 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
396 ** Support for R6RS libraries
398 The `library' and `import' forms from the latest Scheme report have been
399 added to Guile, in such a way that R6RS libraries share a namespace with
400 Guile modules. R6RS modules may import Guile modules, and are available
401 for Guile modules to import via use-modules and all the rest. See "R6RS
402 Libraries" in the manual for more information.
404 ** Implementations of R6RS libraries
406 Guile now has implementations for all of the libraries defined in the
407 R6RS. Thanks to Julian Graham for this excellent hack. See "R6RS
408 Standard Libraries" in the manual for a full list of libraries.
410 ** Partial R6RS compatibility
412 Guile now has enough support for R6RS to run a reasonably large subset
415 Guile is not fully R6RS compatible. Many incompatibilities are simply
416 bugs, though some parts of Guile will remain R6RS-incompatible for the
417 foreseeable future. See "R6RS Incompatibilities" in the manual, for more
420 Please contact bug-guile@gnu.org if you have found an issue not
421 mentioned in that compatibility list.
423 ** New implementation of `primitive-eval'
425 Guile's `primitive-eval' is now implemented in Scheme. Actually there is
426 still a C evaluator, used when building a fresh Guile to interpret the
427 compiler, so we can compile eval.scm. Thereafter all calls to
428 primitive-eval are implemented by VM-compiled code.
430 This allows all of Guile's procedures, be they interpreted or compiled,
431 to execute on the same stack, unifying multiple-value return semantics,
432 providing for proper tail recursion between interpreted and compiled
433 code, and simplifying debugging.
435 As part of this change, the evaluator no longer mutates the internal
436 representation of the code being evaluated in a thread-unsafe manner.
438 There are two negative aspects of this change, however. First, Guile
439 takes a lot longer to compile now. Also, there is less debugging
440 information available for debugging interpreted code. We hope to improve
441 both of these situations.
443 There are many changes to the internal C evalator interface, but all
444 public interfaces should be the same. See the ChangeLog for details. If
445 we have inadvertantly changed an interface that you were using, please
446 contact bug-guile@gnu.org.
448 ** Procedure removed: `the-environment'
450 This procedure was part of the interpreter's execution model, and does
451 not apply to the compiler.
453 ** No more `local-eval'
455 `local-eval' used to exist so that one could evaluate code in the
456 lexical context of a function. Since there is no way to get the lexical
457 environment any more, as that concept has no meaning for the compiler,
458 and a different meaning for the interpreter, we have removed the
461 If you think you need `local-eval', you should probably implement your
462 own metacircular evaluator. It will probably be as fast as Guile's
465 ** Scheme source files will now be compiled automatically.
467 If a compiled .go file corresponding to a .scm file is not found or is
468 not fresh, the .scm file will be compiled on the fly, and the resulting
469 .go file stored away. An advisory note will be printed on the console.
471 Note that this mechanism depends on the timestamp of the .go file being
472 newer than that of the .scm file; if the .scm or .go files are moved
473 after installation, care should be taken to preserve their original
476 Autocompiled files will be stored in the $XDG_CACHE_HOME/guile/ccache
477 directory, where $XDG_CACHE_HOME defaults to ~/.cache. This directory
478 will be created if needed.
480 To inhibit autocompilation, set the GUILE_AUTO_COMPILE environment
481 variable to 0, or pass --no-autocompile on the Guile command line.
483 ** New POSIX procedures: `getrlimit' and `setrlimit'
485 Note however that the interface of these functions is likely to change
486 in the next prerelease.
488 ** New POSIX procedure: `getsid'
490 Scheme binding for the `getsid' C library call.
492 ** New POSIX procedure: `getaddrinfo'
494 Scheme binding for the `getaddrinfo' C library function.
496 ** Multicast socket options
498 Support was added for the IP_MULTICAST_TTL and IP_MULTICAST_IF socket
499 options. See "Network Sockets and Communication" in the manual, for
502 ** New GNU procedures: `setaffinity' and `getaffinity'.
504 See "Processes" in the manual, for more information.
506 ** New procedures: `compose', `negate', and `const'
508 See "Higher-Order Functions" in the manual, for more information.
510 ** New procedure in `(oops goops)': `method-formals'
512 ** New procedures in (ice-9 session): `add-value-help-handler!',
513 `remove-value-help-handler!', `add-name-help-handler!'
514 `remove-name-help-handler!', `procedure-arguments'
516 The value and name help handlers provide some minimal extensibility to
517 the help interface. Guile-lib's `(texinfo reflection)' uses them, for
518 example, to make stexinfo help documentation available. See those
519 procedures' docstrings for more information.
521 `procedure-arguments' describes the arguments that a procedure can take,
522 combining arity and formals. For example:
524 (procedure-arguments resolve-interface)
525 => ((required . (name)) (rest . args))
527 Additionally, `module-commentary' is now publically exported from
530 ** Removed: `procedure->memoizing-macro', `procedure->syntax'
532 These procedures created primitive fexprs for the old evaluator, and are
533 no longer supported. If you feel that you need these functions, you
534 probably need to write your own metacircular evaluator (which will
535 probably be as fast as Guile's, anyway).
537 ** New language: ECMAScript
539 Guile now ships with one other high-level language supported,
540 ECMAScript. The goal is to support all of version 3.1 of the standard,
541 but not all of the libraries are there yet. This support is not yet
542 documented; ask on the mailing list if you are interested.
544 ** New language: Brainfuck
546 Brainfuck is a toy language that closely models Turing machines. Guile's
547 brainfuck compiler is meant to be an example of implementing other
548 languages. See the manual for details, or
549 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck for more information about the
550 Brainfuck language itself.
552 ** New language: Elisp
554 Guile now has an experimental Emacs Lisp compiler and runtime. You can
555 now switch to Elisp at the repl: `,language elisp'. All kudos to Daniel
556 Kraft and Brian Templeton, and all bugs to bug-guile@gnu.org.
558 ** Better documentation infrastructure for macros
560 It is now possible to introspect on the type of a macro, e.g.
561 syntax-rules, identifier-syntax, etc, and extract information about that
562 macro, such as the syntax-rules patterns or the defmacro arguments.
563 `(texinfo reflection)' takes advantage of this to give better macro
566 ** Support for arbitrary procedure metadata
568 Building on its support for docstrings, Guile now supports multiple
569 docstrings, adding them to the tail of a compiled procedure's
570 properties. For example:
576 (procedure-properties foo)
577 => ((name . foo) (documentation . "one") (documentation . "two"))
579 Also, vectors of pairs are now treated as additional metadata entries:
582 #((quz . #f) (docstring . "xyzzy"))
584 (procedure-properties bar)
585 => ((name . bar) (quz . #f) (docstring . "xyzzy"))
587 This allows arbitrary literals to be embedded as metadata in a compiled
590 ** The psyntax expander now knows how to interpret the @ and @@ special
593 ** The psyntax expander is now hygienic with respect to modules.
595 Free variables in a macro are scoped in the module that the macro was
596 defined in, not in the module the macro is used in. For example, code
599 (define-module (foo) #:export (bar))
600 (define (helper x) ...)
602 (syntax-rules () ((_ x) (helper x))))
604 (define-module (baz) #:use-module (foo))
607 It used to be you had to export `helper' from `(foo)' as well.
608 Thankfully, this has been fixed.
610 ** Support for version information in Guile's `module' form
612 Guile modules now have a `#:version' field. See "R6RS Version
613 References", "General Information about Modules", "Using Guile Modules",
614 and "Creating Guile Modules" in the manual for more information.
616 ** Support for renaming bindings on module export
618 Wherever Guile accepts a symbol as an argument to specify a binding to
619 export, it now also accepts a pair of symbols, indicating that a binding
620 should be renamed on export. See "Creating Guile Modules" in the manual
621 for more information.
623 ** New procedure: `module-export-all!'
625 This procedure exports all current and future bindings from a module.
626 Use as `(module-export-all! (current-module))'.
628 ** New procedure `reload-module', and `,reload' REPL command
630 See "Module System Reflection" and "Module Commands" in the manual, for
633 ** `eval-case' has been deprecated, and replaced by `eval-when'.
635 The semantics of `eval-when' are easier to understand. See "Eval When"
636 in the manual, for more information.
638 ** Guile is now more strict about prohibiting definitions in expression
641 Although previous versions of Guile accepted it, the following
642 expression is not valid, in R5RS or R6RS:
644 (if test (define foo 'bar) (define foo 'baz))
646 In this specific case, it would be better to do:
648 (define foo (if test 'bar 'baz))
650 It is certainly possible to circumvent this resriction with e.g.
651 `(module-define! (current-module) 'foo 'baz)'. We would appreciate
652 feedback about this change (a consequence of using psyntax as the
653 default expander), and may choose to revisit this situation before 2.0
654 in response to user feedback.
656 ** Support for `letrec*'
658 Guile now supports `letrec*', a recursive lexical binding operator in
659 which the identifiers are bound in order. See "Local Bindings" in the
660 manual, for more details.
662 ** Internal definitions now expand to `letrec*'
664 Following the R6RS, internal definitions now expand to letrec* instead
665 of letrec. The following program is invalid for R5RS, but valid for
670 (define baz (+ bar 20))
673 ;; R5RS and Guile <= 1.8:
674 (foo) => Unbound variable: bar
675 ;; R6RS and Guile >= 2.0:
678 This change should not affect correct R5RS programs, or programs written
679 in earlier Guile dialects.
681 ** Macro expansion produces structures instead of s-expressions
683 In the olden days, macroexpanding an s-expression would yield another
684 s-expression. Though the lexical variables were renamed, expansions of
685 core forms like `if' and `begin' were still non-hygienic, as they relied
686 on the toplevel definitions of `if' et al being the conventional ones.
688 The solution is to expand to structures instead of s-expressions. There
689 is an `if' structure, a `begin' structure, a `toplevel-ref' structure,
690 etc. The expander already did this for compilation, producing Tree-IL
691 directly; it has been changed now to do so when expanding for the
694 ** Defmacros must now produce valid Scheme expressions.
696 It used to be that defmacros could unquote in Scheme values, as a way of
697 supporting partial evaluation, and avoiding some hygiene issues. For
700 (define (helper x) ...)
701 (define-macro (foo bar)
704 Assuming this macro is in the `(baz)' module, the direct translation of
707 (define (helper x) ...)
708 (define-macro (foo bar)
709 `((@@ (baz) helper) ,bar))
711 Of course, one could just use a hygienic macro instead:
715 ((_ bar) (helper bar))))
717 ** Guile's psyntax now supports docstrings and internal definitions.
719 The following Scheme is not strictly legal:
726 However its intent is fairly clear. Guile interprets "bar" to be the
727 docstring of `foo', and the definition of `baz' is still in definition
730 ** Support for settable identifier syntax
732 Following the R6RS, "variable transformers" are settable
733 identifier-syntax. See "Identifier macros" in the manual, for more
736 ** syntax-case treats `_' as a placeholder
738 Following R6RS, a `_' in a syntax-rules or syntax-case pattern matches
739 anything, and binds no pattern variables. Unlike the R6RS, Guile also
740 permits `_' to be in the literals list for a pattern.
742 ** Macros need to be defined before their first use.
744 It used to be that with lazy memoization, this might work:
748 (define-macro (ref x) x)
751 But now, the body of `foo' is interpreted to mean a call to the toplevel
752 `ref' function, instead of a macro expansion. The solution is to define
753 macros before code that uses them.
755 ** Functions needed by macros at expand-time need to be present at
758 For example, this code will work at the REPL:
760 (define (double-helper x) (* x x))
761 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
762 (double-literal 2) => 4
764 But it will not work when a file is compiled, because the definition of
765 `double-helper' is not present at expand-time. The solution is to wrap
766 the definition of `double-helper' in `eval-when':
768 (eval-when (load compile eval)
769 (define (double-helper x) (* x x)))
770 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
771 (double-literal 2) => 4
773 See the documentation for eval-when for more information.
775 ** `macroexpand' produces structures, not S-expressions.
777 Given the need to maintain referential transparency, both lexically and
778 modular, the result of expanding Scheme expressions is no longer itself
779 an s-expression. If you want a human-readable approximation of the
780 result of `macroexpand', call `tree-il->scheme' from `(language
783 ** Removed function: `macroexpand-1'
785 It is unclear how to implement `macroexpand-1' with syntax-case, though
786 PLT Scheme does prove that it is possible.
788 ** New reader macros: #' #` #, #,@
790 These macros translate, respectively, to `syntax', `quasisyntax',
791 `unsyntax', and `unsyntax-splicing'. See the R6RS for more information.
792 These reader macros may be overridden by `read-hash-extend'.
794 ** Incompatible change to #'
796 Guile did have a #' hash-extension, by default, which just returned the
797 subsequent datum: #'foo => foo. In the unlikely event that anyone
798 actually used this, this behavior may be reinstated via the
799 `read-hash-extend' mechanism.
801 ** Scheme expresssions may be commented out with #;
803 #; comments out an entire expression. See SRFI-62 or the R6RS for more
806 ** Prompts: Delimited, composable continuations
808 Guile now has prompts as part of its primitive language. See "Prompts"
809 in the manual, for more information.
811 Expressions entered in at the REPL, or from the command line, are
812 surrounded by a prompt with the default prompt tag.
814 ** `make-stack' with a tail-called procedural narrowing argument no longer
815 works (with compiled procedures)
817 It used to be the case that a captured stack could be narrowed to select
818 calls only up to or from a certain procedure, even if that procedure
819 already tail-called another procedure. This was because the debug
820 information from the original procedure was kept on the stack.
822 Now with the new compiler, the stack only contains active frames from
823 the current continuation. A narrow to a procedure that is not in the
824 stack will result in an empty stack. To fix this, narrow to a procedure
825 that is active in the current continuation, or narrow to a specific
826 number of stack frames.
828 ** Backtraces through compiled procedures only show procedures that are
829 active in the current continuation
831 Similarly to the previous issue, backtraces in compiled code may be
832 different from backtraces in interpreted code. There are no semantic
833 differences, however. Please mail bug-guile@gnu.org if you see any
834 deficiencies with Guile's backtraces.
836 ** New macro: `current-source-location'
838 The macro returns the current source location (to be documented).
840 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case macros now propagate source information
841 through to the expanded code
843 This should result in better backtraces.
845 ** The currying behavior of `define' has been removed.
847 Before, `(define ((f a) b) (* a b))' would translate to
849 (define f (lambda (a) (lambda (b) (* a b))))
851 Now a syntax error is signaled, as this syntax is not supported by
852 default. Use the `(ice-9 curried-definitions)' module to get back the
855 ** New procedure, `define!'
857 `define!' is a procedure that takes two arguments, a symbol and a value,
858 and binds the value to the symbol in the current module. It's useful to
859 programmatically make definitions in the current module, and is slightly
860 less verbose than `module-define!'.
862 ** All modules have names now
864 Before, you could have anonymous modules: modules without names. Now,
865 because of hygiene and macros, all modules have names. If a module was
866 created without a name, the first time `module-name' is called on it, a
867 fresh name will be lazily generated for it.
869 ** The module namespace is now separate from the value namespace
871 It was a little-known implementation detail of Guile's module system
872 that it was built on a single hierarchical namespace of values -- that
873 if there was a module named `(foo bar)', then in the module named
874 `(foo)' there was a binding from `bar' to the `(foo bar)' module.
876 This was a neat trick, but presented a number of problems. One problem
877 was that the bindings in a module were not apparent from the module
878 itself; perhaps the `(foo)' module had a private binding for `bar', and
879 then an external contributor defined `(foo bar)'. In the end there can
880 be only one binding, so one of the two will see the wrong thing, and
881 produce an obtuse error of unclear provenance.
883 Also, the public interface of a module was also bound in the value
884 namespace, as `%module-public-interface'. This was a hack from the early
885 days of Guile's modules.
887 Both of these warts have been fixed by the addition of fields in the
888 `module' data type. Access to modules and their interfaces from the
889 value namespace has been deprecated, and all accessors use the new
890 record accessors appropriately.
892 When Guile is built with support for deprecated code, as is the default,
893 the value namespace is still searched for modules and public interfaces,
894 and a deprecation warning is raised as appropriate.
896 Finally, to support lazy loading of modules as one used to be able to do
897 with module binder procedures, Guile now has submodule binders, called
898 if a given submodule is not found. See boot-9.scm for more information.
900 ** New procedures: module-ref-submodule, module-define-submodule,
901 nested-ref-module, nested-define-module!, local-ref-module,
904 These new accessors are like their bare variants, but operate on
905 namespaces instead of values.
907 ** The (app modules) module tree is officially deprecated
909 It used to be that one could access a module named `(foo bar)' via
910 `(nested-ref the-root-module '(app modules foo bar))'. The `(app
911 modules)' bit was a never-used and never-documented abstraction, and has
912 been deprecated. See the following mail for a full discussion:
914 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2010-04/msg00168.html
916 The `%app' binding is also deprecated.
918 ** `module-filename' field and accessor
920 Modules now record the file in which they are defined. This field may be
921 accessed with the new `module-filename' procedure.
923 ** Modules load within a known environment
925 It takes a few procedure calls to define a module, and those procedure
926 calls need to be in scope. Now we ensure that the current module when
927 loading a module is one that has the needed bindings, instead of relying
930 ** Many syntax errors have different texts now
932 Syntax errors still throw to the `syntax-error' key, but the arguments
933 are often different now. Perhaps in the future, Guile will switch to
934 using standard SRFI-35 conditions.
936 ** Returning multiple values to compiled code will silently truncate the
937 values to the expected number
939 For example, the interpreter would raise an error evaluating the form,
940 `(+ (values 1 2) (values 3 4))', because it would see the operands as
941 being two compound "values" objects, to which `+' does not apply.
943 The compiler, on the other hand, receives multiple values on the stack,
944 not as a compound object. Given that it must check the number of values
945 anyway, if too many values are provided for a continuation, it chooses
946 to truncate those values, effectively evaluating `(+ 1 3)' instead.
948 The idea is that the semantics that the compiler implements is more
949 intuitive, and the use of the interpreter will fade out with time.
950 This behavior is allowed both by the R5RS and the R6RS.
952 ** Multiple values in compiled code are not represented by compound
955 This change may manifest itself in the following situation:
957 (let ((val (foo))) (do-something) val)
959 In the interpreter, if `foo' returns multiple values, multiple values
960 are produced from the `let' expression. In the compiler, those values
961 are truncated to the first value, and that first value is returned. In
962 the compiler, if `foo' returns no values, an error will be raised, while
963 the interpreter would proceed.
965 Both of these behaviors are allowed by R5RS and R6RS. The compiler's
966 behavior is more correct, however. If you wish to preserve a potentially
967 multiply-valued return, you will need to set up a multiple-value
968 continuation, using `call-with-values'.
970 ** Defmacros are now implemented in terms of syntax-case.
972 The practical ramification of this is that the `defmacro?' predicate has
973 been removed, along with `defmacro-transformer', `macro-table',
974 `xformer-table', `assert-defmacro?!', `set-defmacro-transformer!' and
975 `defmacro:transformer'. This is because defmacros are simply macros. If
976 any of these procedures provided useful facilities to you, we encourage
977 you to contact the Guile developers.
979 ** Hygienic macros documented as the primary syntactic extension mechanism.
981 The macro documentation was finally fleshed out with some documentation
982 on `syntax-rules' and `syntax-case' macros, and other parts of the macro
983 expansion process. See "Macros" in the manual, for details.
985 ** psyntax is now the default expander
987 Scheme code is now expanded by default by the psyntax hygienic macro
988 expander. Expansion is performed completely before compilation or
991 Notably, syntax errors will be signalled before interpretation begins.
992 In the past, many syntax errors were only detected at runtime if the
993 code in question was memoized.
995 As part of its expansion, psyntax renames all lexically-bound
996 identifiers. Original identifier names are preserved and given to the
997 compiler, but the interpreter will see the renamed variables, e.g.,
998 `x432' instead of `x'.
1000 Note that the psyntax that Guile uses is a fork, as Guile already had
1001 modules before incompatible modules were added to psyntax -- about 10
1002 years ago! Thus there are surely a number of bugs that have been fixed
1003 in psyntax since then. If you find one, please notify bug-guile@gnu.org.
1005 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case are available by default.
1007 There is no longer any need to import the `(ice-9 syncase)' module
1008 (which is now deprecated). The expander may be invoked directly via
1009 `macroexpand', though it is normally searched for via the current module
1012 Also, the helper routines for syntax-case are available in the default
1013 environment as well: `syntax->datum', `datum->syntax',
1014 `bound-identifier=?', `free-identifier=?', `generate-temporaries',
1015 `identifier?', and `syntax-violation'. See the R6RS for documentation.
1017 ** Tail patterns in syntax-case
1019 Guile has pulled in some more recent changes from the psyntax portable
1020 syntax expander, to implement support for "tail patterns". Such patterns
1021 are supported by syntax-rules and syntax-case. This allows a syntax-case
1022 match clause to have ellipses, then a pattern at the end. For example:
1025 (syntax-rules (else)
1026 ((_ val match-clause ... (else e e* ...))
1029 Note how there is MATCH-CLAUSE, which is ellipsized, then there is a
1030 tail pattern for the else clause. Thanks to Andreas Rottmann for the
1031 patch, and Kent Dybvig for the code.
1033 ** Lexical bindings introduced by hygienic macros may not be referenced
1034 by nonhygienic macros.
1036 If a lexical binding is introduced by a hygienic macro, it may not be
1037 referenced by a nonhygienic macro. For example, this works:
1040 (define-macro (bind-x val body)
1041 `(let ((x ,val)) ,body))
1042 (define-macro (ref x)
1044 (bind-x 10 (ref x)))
1049 (define-syntax bind-x
1051 ((_ val body) (let ((x val)) body))))
1052 (define-macro (ref x)
1054 (bind-x 10 (ref x)))
1056 It is not normal to run into this situation with existing code. However,
1057 if you have defmacros that expand to hygienic macros, it is possible to
1058 run into situations like this. For example, if you have a defmacro that
1059 generates a `while' expression, the `break' bound by the `while' may not
1060 be visible within other parts of your defmacro. The solution is to port
1061 from defmacros to syntax-rules or syntax-case.
1063 ** Macros may no longer be referenced as first-class values.
1065 In the past, you could evaluate e.g. `if', and get its macro value. Now,
1066 expanding this form raises a syntax error.
1068 Macros still /exist/ as first-class values, but they must be
1069 /referenced/ via the module system, e.g. `(module-ref (current-module)
1072 ** Macros may now have docstrings.
1074 `object-documentation' from `(ice-9 documentation)' may be used to
1075 retrieve the docstring, once you have a macro value -- but see the above
1076 note about first-class macros. Docstrings are associated with the syntax
1077 transformer procedures.
1079 ** `case-lambda' is now available in the default environment.
1081 The binding in the default environment is equivalent to the one from the
1082 `(srfi srfi-16)' module. Use the srfi-16 module explicitly if you wish
1083 to maintain compatibility with Guile 1.8 and earlier.
1085 ** Procedures may now have more than one arity.
1087 This can be the case, for example, in case-lambda procedures. The
1088 arities of compiled procedures may be accessed via procedures from the
1089 `(system vm program)' module; see "Compiled Procedures", "Optional
1090 Arguments", and "Case-lambda" in the manual.
1092 ** Deprecate arity access via (procedure-properties proc 'arity)
1094 Instead of accessing a procedure's arity as a property, use the new
1095 `procedure-minimum-arity' function, which gives the most permissive
1096 arity that the the function has, in the same format as the old arity
1099 ** `lambda*' and `define*' are now available in the default environment
1101 As with `case-lambda', `(ice-9 optargs)' continues to be supported, for
1102 compatibility purposes. No semantic change has been made (we hope).
1103 Optional and keyword arguments now dispatch via special VM operations,
1104 without the need to cons rest arguments, making them very fast.
1106 ** New function, `truncated-print', with `format' support
1108 `(ice-9 pretty-print)' now exports `truncated-print', a printer that
1109 will ensure that the output stays within a certain width, truncating the
1110 output in what is hopefully an intelligent manner. See the manual for
1113 There is a new `format' specifier, `~@y', for doing a truncated
1114 print (as opposed to `~y', which does a pretty-print). See the `format'
1115 documentation for more details.
1117 ** Better pretty-printing
1119 Indentation recognizes more special forms, like `syntax-case', and read
1120 macros like `quote' are printed better.
1122 ** Passing a number as the destination of `format' is deprecated
1124 The `format' procedure in `(ice-9 format)' now emits a deprecation
1125 warning if a number is passed as its first argument.
1127 ** SRFI-4 vectors reimplemented in terms of R6RS bytevectors
1129 Guile now implements SRFI-4 vectors using bytevectors. Often when you
1130 have a numeric vector, you end up wanting to write its bytes somewhere,
1131 or have access to the underlying bytes, or read in bytes from somewhere
1132 else. Bytevectors are very good at this sort of thing. But the SRFI-4
1133 APIs are nicer to use when doing number-crunching, because they are
1134 addressed by element and not by byte.
1136 So as a compromise, Guile allows all bytevector functions to operate on
1137 numeric vectors. They address the underlying bytes in the native
1138 endianness, as one would expect.
1140 Following the same reasoning, that it's just bytes underneath, Guile
1141 also allows uniform vectors of a given type to be accessed as if they
1142 were of any type. One can fill a u32vector, and access its elements with
1143 u8vector-ref. One can use f64vector-ref on bytevectors. It's all the
1146 In this way, uniform numeric vectors may be written to and read from
1147 input/output ports using the procedures that operate on bytevectors.
1149 Calls to SRFI-4 accessors (ref and set functions) from Scheme are now
1150 inlined to the VM instructions for bytevector access.
1152 See "SRFI-4" in the manual, for more information.
1154 ** Nonstandard SRFI-4 procedures now available from `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)'
1156 Guile's `(srfi srfi-4)' now only exports those srfi-4 procedures that
1157 are part of the standard. Complex uniform vectors and the
1158 `any->FOOvector' family are now available only from `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)'.
1160 Guile's default environment imports `(srfi srfi-4)', and probably should
1161 import `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)' as well.
1163 See "SRFI-4 Extensions" in the manual, for more information.
1165 ** New syntax: include-from-path.
1167 `include-from-path' is like `include', except it looks for its file in
1168 the load path. It can be used to compile other files into a file.
1170 ** New syntax: quasisyntax.
1172 `quasisyntax' is to `syntax' as `quasiquote' is to `quote'. See the R6RS
1173 documentation for more information. Thanks to Andre van Tonder for the
1176 ** `*unspecified*' is identifier syntax
1178 `*unspecified*' is no longer a variable, so it is optimized properly by
1179 the compiler, and is not `set!'-able.
1181 ** Unicode characters
1183 Unicode characters may be entered in octal format via e.g. `#\454', or
1184 created via (integer->char 300). A hex external representation will
1185 probably be introduced at some point.
1189 Internally, strings are now represented either in the `latin-1'
1190 encoding, one byte per character, or in UTF-32, with four bytes per
1191 character. Strings manage their own allocation, switching if needed.
1193 Extended characters may be written in a literal string using the
1194 hexadecimal escapes `\xXX', `\uXXXX', or `\UXXXXXX', for 8-bit, 16-bit,
1195 or 24-bit codepoints, respectively, or entered directly in the native
1196 encoding of the port on which the string is read.
1200 One may now use U+03BB (GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMBDA) as an identifier.
1202 ** Support for non-ASCII source code files
1204 The default reader now handles source code files for some of the
1205 non-ASCII character encodings, such as UTF-8. A non-ASCII source file
1206 should have an encoding declaration near the top of the file. Also,
1207 there is a new function, `file-encoding', that scans a port for a coding
1208 declaration. See the section of the manual entitled, "Character Encoding
1211 The pre-1.9.3 reader handled 8-bit clean but otherwise unspecified source
1212 code. This use is now discouraged. Binary input and output is
1213 currently supported by opening ports in the ISO-8859-1 locale.
1215 ** Support for locale transcoding when reading from and writing to ports
1217 Ports now have an associated character encoding, and port read and write
1218 operations do conversion to and from locales automatically. Ports also
1219 have an associated strategy for how to deal with locale conversion
1222 See the documentation in the manual for the four new support functions,
1223 `set-port-encoding!', `port-encoding', `set-port-conversion-strategy!',
1224 and `port-conversion-strategy'.
1226 ** String and SRFI-13 functions can operate on Unicode strings
1228 ** Unicode support for SRFI-14 character sets
1230 The default character sets are no longer locale dependent and contain
1231 characters from the whole Unicode range. There is a new predefined
1232 character set, `char-set:designated', which contains all assigned
1233 Unicode characters. There is a new debugging function, `%char-set-dump'.
1235 ** Character functions operate on Unicode characters
1237 `char-upcase' and `char-downcase' use default Unicode casing rules.
1238 Character comparisons such as `char<?' and `char-ci<?' now sort based on
1239 Unicode code points.
1241 ** Global variables `scm_charnames' and `scm_charnums' are removed
1243 These variables contained the names of control characters and were
1244 used when writing characters. While these were global, they were
1245 never intended to be public API. They have been replaced with private
1248 ** EBCDIC support is removed
1250 There was an EBCDIC compile flag that altered some of the character
1251 processing. It appeared that full EBCDIC support was never completed
1252 and was unmaintained.
1254 ** Compile-time warnings
1256 Guile can warn about potentially unbound free variables. Pass the
1257 -Wunbound-variable on the `guile-tools compile' command line, or add
1258 `#:warnings '(unbound-variable)' to your `compile' or `compile-file'
1259 invocation. Warnings are also enabled by default for expressions entered
1262 Guile can also warn when you pass the wrong number of arguments to a
1263 procedure, with -Warity-mismatch, or `arity-mismatch' in the
1264 `#:warnings' as above.
1266 Other warnings include `-Wunused-variable' and `-Wunused-toplevel', to
1267 warn about unused local or global (top-level) variables, and `-Wformat',
1268 to check for various errors related to the `format' procedure.
1270 ** A new `memoize-symbol' evaluator trap has been added.
1272 This trap can be used for efficiently implementing a Scheme code
1275 ** Duplicate bindings among used modules are resolved lazily.
1277 This slightly improves program startup times.
1279 ** New thread cancellation and thread cleanup API
1281 See `cancel-thread', `set-thread-cleanup!', and `thread-cleanup'.
1283 ** New threads are in `(guile-user)' by default, not `(guile)'
1285 It used to be that a new thread entering Guile would do so in the
1286 `(guile)' module, unless this was the first time Guile was initialized,
1287 in which case it was `(guile-user)'. This has been fixed to have all
1288 new threads unknown to Guile default to `(guile-user)'.
1290 ** GOOPS dispatch in scheme
1292 As an implementation detail, GOOPS dispatch is no longer implemented by
1293 special evaluator bytecodes, but rather directly via a Scheme function
1294 associated with an applicable struct. There is some VM support for the
1295 underlying primitives, like `class-of'.
1297 This change will in the future allow users to customize generic function
1298 dispatch without incurring a performance penalty, and allow us to
1299 implement method combinations.
1301 ** Applicable struct support
1303 One may now make structs from Scheme that may be applied as procedures.
1304 To do so, make a struct whose vtable is `<applicable-struct-vtable>'.
1305 That struct will be the vtable of your applicable structs; instances of
1306 that new struct are assumed to have the procedure in their first slot.
1307 `<applicable-struct-vtable>' is like Common Lisp's
1308 `funcallable-standard-class'. Likewise there is
1309 `<applicable-struct-with-setter-vtable>', which looks for the setter in
1310 the second slot. This needs to be better documented.
1314 GOOPS had a number of concepts that were relevant to the days of Tcl,
1315 but not any more: operators and entities, mainly. These objects were
1316 never documented, and it is unlikely that they were ever used. Operators
1317 were a kind of generic specific to the Tcl support. Entities were
1318 replaced by applicable structs, mentioned above.
1320 ** New struct slot allocation: "hidden"
1322 A hidden slot is readable and writable, but will not be initialized by a
1323 call to make-struct. For example in your layout you would say "ph"
1324 instead of "pw". Hidden slots are useful for adding new slots to a
1325 vtable without breaking existing invocations to make-struct.
1327 ** eqv? not a generic
1329 One used to be able to extend `eqv?' as a primitive-generic, but no
1330 more. Because `eqv?' is in the expansion of `case' (via `memv'), which
1331 should be able to compile to static dispatch tables, it doesn't make
1332 sense to allow extensions that would subvert this optimization.
1334 ** `inet-ntop' and `inet-pton' are always available.
1336 Guile now use a portable implementation of `inet_pton'/`inet_ntop', so
1337 there is no more need to use `inet-aton'/`inet-ntoa'. The latter
1338 functions are deprecated.
1340 ** New primitive: `tmpfile'.
1342 See "File System" in the manual.
1344 ** Random generator state may be serialized to a datum
1346 `random-state->datum' will serialize a random state to a datum, which
1347 may be written out, read back in later, and revivified using
1348 `datum->random-state'. See "Random" in the manual, for more details.
1350 ** Fix random number generator on 64-bit platforms
1352 There was a nasty bug on 64-bit platforms in which asking for a random
1353 integer with a range between 2**32 and 2**64 caused a segfault. After
1354 many embarrassing iterations, this was fixed.
1356 ** Fast bit operations.
1358 The bit-twiddling operations `ash', `logand', `logior', and `logxor' now
1359 have dedicated bytecodes. Guile is not just for symbolic computation,
1360 it's for number crunching too.
1362 ** Faster SRFI-9 record access
1364 SRFI-9 records are now implemented directly on top of Guile's structs,
1365 and their accessors are defined in such a way that normal call-sites
1366 inline to special VM opcodes, while still allowing for the general case
1367 (e.g. passing a record accessor to `apply').
1369 ** R6RS block comment support
1371 Guile now supports R6RS nested block comments. The start of a comment is
1372 marked with `#|', and the end with `|#'.
1374 ** `guile-2' cond-expand feature
1376 To test if your code is running under Guile 2.0 (or its alpha releases),
1377 test for the `guile-2' cond-expand feature. Like this:
1379 (cond-expand (guile-2 (eval-when (compile)
1380 ;; This must be evaluated at compile time.
1381 (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
1383 ;; Earlier versions of Guile do not have a
1384 ;; separate compilation phase.
1385 (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
1387 ** New global variables: %load-compiled-path, %load-compiled-extensions
1389 These are analogous to %load-path and %load-extensions.
1391 ** New fluid: `%file-port-name-canonicalization'
1393 This fluid parameterizes the file names that are associated with file
1394 ports. If %file-port-name-canonicalization is 'absolute, then file names
1395 are canonicalized to be absolute paths. If it is 'relative, then the
1396 name is canonicalized, but any prefix corresponding to a member of
1397 `%load-path' is stripped off. Otherwise the names are passed through
1400 In addition, the `compile-file' and `compile-and-load' procedures bind
1401 %file-port-name-canonicalization to their `#:canonicalization' keyword
1402 argument, which defaults to 'relative. In this way, one might compile
1403 "../module/ice-9/boot-9.scm", but the path that gets residualized into
1404 the .go is "ice-9/boot-9.scm".
1406 ** New procedure, `make-promise'
1408 `(make-promise (lambda () foo))' is equivalent to `(delay foo)'.
1410 ** `defined?' may accept a module as its second argument
1412 Previously it only accepted internal structures from the evaluator.
1414 ** New entry into %guile-build-info: `ccachedir'
1416 ** Fix bug in `module-bound?'.
1418 `module-bound?' was returning true if a module did have a local
1419 variable, but one that was unbound, but another imported module bound
1420 the variable. This was an error, and was fixed.
1422 ** `(ice-9 syncase)' has been deprecated.
1424 As syntax-case is available by default, importing `(ice-9 syncase)' has
1425 no effect, and will trigger a deprecation warning.
1427 ** New readline history functions
1429 The (ice-9 readline) module now provides add-history, read-history,
1430 write-history and clear-history, which wrap the corresponding GNU
1431 History library functions.
1433 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures:
1434 dimensions->uniform-array, list->uniform-array, array-prototype
1436 Instead, use make-typed-array, list->typed-array, or array-type,
1439 ** Deprecate the old `scm-style-repl'
1441 The following bindings from boot-9 are now found in `(ice-9
1442 scm-style-repl)': `scm-style-repl', `error-catching-loop',
1443 `error-catching-repl', `bad-throw', `scm-repl-silent'
1444 `assert-repl-silence', `repl-print-unspecified',
1445 `assert-repl-print-unspecified', `scm-repl-verbose',
1446 `assert-repl-verbosity', `scm-repl-prompt', `set-repl-prompt!', `repl',
1447 `default-pre-unwind-handler', `handle-system-error',
1449 The following bindings have been deprecated, with no replacement:
1450 `pre-unwind-handler-dispatch'.
1452 The following bindings have been totally removed:
1453 `before-signal-stack'.
1455 Deprecated forwarding shims have been installed so that users that
1456 expect these bindings in the main namespace will still work, but receive
1457 a deprecation warning.
1459 ** `set-batch-mode?!' replaced by `ensure-batch-mode!'
1461 "Batch mode" is a flag used to tell a program that it is not running
1462 interactively. One usually turns it on after a fork. It may not be
1463 turned off. `ensure-batch-mode!' deprecates the old `set-batch-mode?!',
1464 because it is a better interface, as it can only turn on batch mode, not
1467 ** Deprecate `save-stack', `the-last-stack'
1469 It used to be that the way to debug programs in Guile was to capture the
1470 stack at the time of error, drop back to the REPL, then debug that
1471 stack. But this approach didn't compose, was tricky to get right in the
1472 presence of threads, and was not very powerful.
1474 So `save-stack', `stack-saved?', and `the-last-stack' have been moved to
1475 `(ice-9 save-stack)', with deprecated bindings left in the root module.
1477 ** `top-repl' has its own module
1479 The `top-repl' binding, called with Guile is run interactively, is now
1480 is its own module, `(ice-9 top-repl)'. A deprecated forwarding shim was
1481 left in the default environment.
1483 ** `display-error' takes a frame
1485 The `display-error' / `scm_display_error' helper now takes a frame as an
1486 argument instead of a stack. Stacks are still supported in deprecated
1487 builds. Additionally, `display-error' will again source location
1488 information for the error.
1490 ** No more `(ice-9 debug)'
1492 This module had some debugging helpers that are no longer applicable to
1493 the current debugging model. Importing this module will produce a
1494 deprecation warning. Users should contact bug-guile for support.
1496 ** Remove obsolete debug-options
1498 Removed `breakpoints', `trace', `procnames', `indent', `frames',
1499 `maxdepth', and `debug' debug-options.
1501 ** `backtrace' debug option on by default
1503 Given that Guile 2.0 can always give you a backtrace, backtraces are now
1506 ** `turn-on-debugging' deprecated
1508 ** Remove obsolete print-options
1510 The `source' and `closure-hook' print options are obsolete, and have
1513 ** Remove obsolete read-options
1515 The "elisp-strings" and "elisp-vectors" read options were unused and
1516 obsolete, so they have been removed.
1518 ** Remove eval-options and trap-options
1520 Eval-options and trap-options are obsolete with the new VM and
1523 ** Remove (ice-9 debugger) and (ice-9 debugging)
1525 See "Traps" and "Interactive Debugging" in the manual, for information
1526 on their replacements.
1528 ** Remove the GDS Emacs integration
1530 See "Using Guile in Emacs" in the manual, for info on how we think you
1531 should use Guile with Emacs.
1533 ** Deprecated: `lazy-catch'
1535 `lazy-catch' was a form that captured the stack at the point of a
1536 `throw', but the dynamic state at the point of the `catch'. It was a bit
1537 crazy. Please change to use `catch', possibly with a throw-handler, or
1538 `with-throw-handler'.
1540 ** Deprecated `@bind' syntax
1542 `@bind' was part of an older implementation of the Emacs Lisp language,
1543 and is no longer used.
1545 ** Miscellaneous other deprecations
1547 `apply-to-args', `has-suffix?', `scheme-file-suffix'
1548 `get-option', `for-next-option', `display-usage-report',
1549 `transform-usage-lambda', `collect', `set-batch-mode?!',
1551 `cuserid' has been deprecated, as it only returns 8 bytes of a user's
1552 login. Use `(passwd:name (getpwuid (geteuid)))' instead.
1554 ** Add support for unbound fluids
1556 See `make-unbound-fluid', `fluid-unset!', and `fluid-bound?' in the
1559 ** Add `variable-unset!'
1561 See "Variables" in the manual, for more details.
1563 ** Last but not least, the `λ' macro can be used in lieu of `lambda'
1565 * Changes to the C interface
1567 ** Guile now uses libgc, the Boehm-Demers-Weiser garbage collector
1569 The semantics of `scm_gc_malloc ()' have been changed, in a
1570 backward-compatible way. A new allocation routine,
1571 `scm_gc_malloc_pointerless ()', was added.
1573 Libgc is a conservative GC, which we hope will make interaction with C
1574 code easier and less error-prone.
1576 ** New procedures: `scm_to_latin1_stringn', `scm_from_latin1_stringn'
1578 Use these procedures when you know you have latin1-encoded or
1579 ASCII-encoded strings.
1581 ** New procedures: `scm_to_stringn', `scm_from_stringn'
1583 Use these procedures if you want to encode or decode from a particular
1586 ** New type definitions for `scm_t_intptr' and friends.
1588 `SCM_T_UINTPTR_MAX', `SCM_T_INTPTR_MIN', `SCM_T_INTPTR_MAX',
1589 `SIZEOF_SCM_T_BITS', `scm_t_intptr' and `scm_t_uintptr' are now
1590 available to C. Have fun!
1592 ** The GH interface (deprecated in version 1.6, 2001) was removed.
1594 ** Internal `scm_i_' functions now have "hidden" linkage with GCC/ELF
1596 This makes these internal functions technically not callable from
1599 ** Functions for handling `scm_option' now no longer require an argument
1600 indicating length of the `scm_t_option' array.
1602 ** Procedures-with-setters are now implemented using applicable structs
1604 From a user's perspective this doesn't mean very much. But if, for some
1605 odd reason, you used the SCM_PROCEDURE_WITH_SETTER_P, SCM_PROCEDURE, or
1606 SCM_SETTER macros, know that they're deprecated now. Also, scm_tc7_pws
1609 ** Remove old evaluator closures
1611 There used to be ranges of typecodes allocated to interpreted data
1612 structures, but that it no longer the case, given that interpreted
1613 procedure are now just regular VM closures. As a result, there is a
1614 newly free tc3, and a number of removed macros. See the ChangeLog for
1617 ** Primitive procedures are now VM trampoline procedures
1619 It used to be that there were something like 12 different typecodes
1620 allocated to primitive procedures, each with its own calling convention.
1621 Now there is only one, the gsubr. This may affect user code if you were
1622 defining a procedure using scm_c_make_subr rather scm_c_make_gsubr. The
1623 solution is to switch to use scm_c_make_gsubr. This solution works well
1624 both with the old 1.8 and and with the current 1.9 branch.
1626 Guile's old evaluator used to have special cases for applying "gsubrs",
1627 primitive procedures with specified numbers of required, optional, and
1628 rest arguments. Now, however, Guile represents gsubrs as normal VM
1629 procedures, with appropriate bytecode to parse out the correct number of
1630 arguments, including optional and rest arguments, and then with a
1631 special bytecode to apply the gsubr.
1633 This allows primitive procedures to appear on the VM stack, allowing
1634 them to be accurately counted in profiles. Also they now have more
1635 debugging information attached to them -- their number of arguments, for
1636 example. In addition, the VM can completely inline the application
1637 mechanics, allowing for faster primitive calls.
1639 However there are some changes on the C level. There is no more
1640 `scm_tc7_gsubr' or `scm_tcs_subrs' typecode for primitive procedures, as
1641 they are just VM procedures. Likewise the macros `SCM_GSUBR_TYPE',
1642 `SCM_GSUBR_MAKTYPE', `SCM_GSUBR_REQ', `SCM_GSUBR_OPT', and
1643 `SCM_GSUBR_REST' are gone, as are `SCM_SUBR_META_INFO', `SCM_SUBR_PROPS'
1644 `SCM_SET_SUBR_GENERIC_LOC', and `SCM_SUBR_ARITY_TO_TYPE'.
1646 Perhaps more significantly, `scm_c_make_subr',
1647 `scm_c_make_subr_with_generic', `scm_c_define_subr', and
1648 `scm_c_define_subr_with_generic'. They all operated on subr typecodes,
1649 and there are no more subr typecodes. Use the scm_c_make_gsubr family
1652 Normal users of gsubrs should not be affected, though, as the
1653 scm_c_make_gsubr family still is the correct way to create primitive
1656 ** Remove deprecated array C interfaces
1658 Removed the deprecated array functions `scm_i_arrayp',
1659 `scm_i_array_ndim', `scm_i_array_mem', `scm_i_array_v',
1660 `scm_i_array_base', `scm_i_array_dims', and the deprecated macros
1661 `SCM_ARRAYP', `SCM_ARRAY_NDIM', `SCM_ARRAY_CONTP', `SCM_ARRAY_MEM',
1662 `SCM_ARRAY_V', `SCM_ARRAY_BASE', and `SCM_ARRAY_DIMS'.
1664 ** Remove unused snarf macros
1666 `SCM_DEFINE1', `SCM_PRIMITIVE_GENERIC_1', `SCM_PROC1, and `SCM_GPROC1'
1667 are no more. Use SCM_DEFINE or SCM_PRIMITIVE_GENERIC instead.
1669 ** New functions: `scm_call_n', `scm_c_run_hookn'
1671 `scm_call_n' applies to apply a function to an array of arguments.
1672 `scm_c_run_hookn' runs a hook with an array of arguments.
1674 ** Some SMOB types changed to have static typecodes
1676 Fluids, dynamic states, and hash tables used to be SMOB objects, but now
1677 they have statically allocated tc7 typecodes.
1679 ** Preparations for changing SMOB representation
1681 If things go right, we'll be changing the SMOB representation soon. To
1682 that end, we did a lot of cleanups to calls to e.g. SCM_CELL_WORD_2(x) when
1683 the code meant SCM_SMOB_DATA_2(x); user code will need similar changes
1684 in the future. Code accessing SMOBs using SCM_CELL macros was never
1685 correct, but until now things still worked. Users should be aware of
1688 ** Changed invocation mechanics of applicable SMOBs
1690 Guile's old evaluator used to have special cases for applying SMOB
1691 objects. Now, with the VM, when Guile sees a SMOB, it looks up a VM
1692 trampoline procedure for it, and use the normal mechanics to apply the
1693 trampoline. This simplifies procedure application in the normal,
1696 The upshot is that the mechanics used to apply a SMOB are different from
1697 1.8. Descriptors no longer have `apply_0', `apply_1', `apply_2', and
1698 `apply_3' functions, and the macros SCM_SMOB_APPLY_0 and friends are now
1699 deprecated. Just use the scm_call_0 family of procedures.
1701 ** Removed support shlibs for SRFIs 1, 4, 13, 14, and 60
1703 Though these SRFI support libraries did expose API, they encoded a
1704 strange version string into their library names. That version was never
1705 programmatically exported, so there was no way people could use the
1708 This was a fortunate oversight, as it allows us to remove the need for
1709 extra, needless shared libraries --- the C support code for SRFIs 4, 13,
1710 and 14 was already in core --- and allow us to incrementally return the
1711 SRFI implementation to Scheme.
1713 ** New C function: scm_module_public_interface
1715 This procedure corresponds to Scheme's `module-public-interface'.
1717 ** Undeprecate `scm_the_root_module ()'
1719 It's useful to be able to get the root module from C without doing a
1722 ** Inline vector allocation
1724 Instead of having vectors point out into the heap for their data, their
1725 data is now allocated inline to the vector object itself. The same is
1726 true for bytevectors, by default, though there is an indirection
1727 available which should allow for making a bytevector from an existing
1730 ** New struct constructors that don't involve making lists
1732 `scm_c_make_struct' and `scm_c_make_structv' are new varargs and array
1733 constructors, respectively, for structs. You might find them useful.
1737 In Guile 1.8, there were debugging frames on the C stack. Now there is
1738 no more need to explicitly mark the stack in this way, because Guile has
1739 a VM stack that it knows how to walk, which simplifies the C API
1740 considerably. See the ChangeLog for details; the relevant interface is
1741 in libguile/stacks.h. The Scheme API has not been changed significantly.
1743 ** Removal of Guile's primitive object system.
1745 There were a number of pieces in `objects.[ch]' that tried to be a
1746 minimal object system, but were never documented, and were quickly
1747 obseleted by GOOPS' merge into Guile proper. So `scm_make_class_object',
1748 `scm_make_subclass_object', `scm_metaclass_standard', and like symbols
1749 from objects.h are no more. In the very unlikely case in which these
1750 were useful to you, we urge you to contact guile-devel.
1754 Actually the future is still in the state that it was, is, and ever
1755 shall be, Amen, except that `futures.c' and `futures.h' are no longer a
1756 part of it. These files were experimental, never compiled, and would be
1757 better implemented in Scheme anyway. In the future, that is.
1759 ** Deprecate trampolines
1761 There used to be C functions `scm_trampoline_0', `scm_trampoline_1', and
1762 so on. The point was to do some precomputation on the type of the
1763 procedure, then return a specialized "call" procedure. However this
1764 optimization wasn't actually an optimization, so it is now deprecated.
1765 Just use `scm_call_0', etc instead.
1767 ** Deprecated `scm_badargsp'
1769 This function is unused in Guile, but was part of its API.
1771 ** Better support for Lisp `nil'.
1773 The bit representation of `nil' has been tweaked so that it is now very
1774 efficient to check e.g. if a value is equal to Scheme's end-of-list or
1775 Lisp's nil. Additionally there are a heap of new, specific predicates
1776 like scm_is_null_or_nil.
1778 ** Better integration of Lisp `nil'.
1780 `scm_is_boolean', `scm_is_false', and `scm_is_null' all return true now
1781 for Lisp's `nil'. This shouldn't affect any Scheme code at this point,
1782 but when we start to integrate more with Emacs, it is possible that we
1783 break code that assumes that, for example, `(not x)' implies that `x' is
1784 `eq?' to `#f'. This is not a common assumption. Refactoring affected
1785 code to rely on properties instead of identities will improve code
1786 correctness. See "Nil" in the manual, for more details.
1788 ** Support for static allocation of strings, symbols, and subrs.
1790 Calls to snarfing CPP macros like SCM_DEFINE macro will now allocate
1791 much of their associated data as static variables, reducing Guile's
1794 ** `scm_stat' has an additional argument, `exception_on_error'
1795 ** `scm_primitive_load_path' has an additional argument `exception_on_not_found'
1797 ** `scm_set_port_seek' and `scm_set_port_truncate' use the `scm_t_off' type
1799 Previously they would use the `off_t' type, which is fragile since its
1800 definition depends on the application's value for `_FILE_OFFSET_BITS'.
1802 ** The `long_long' C type, deprecated in 1.8, has been removed
1804 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures: scm_make_uve,
1805 scm_array_prototype, scm_list_to_uniform_array,
1806 scm_dimensions_to_uniform_array, scm_make_ra, scm_shap2ra, scm_cvref,
1807 scm_ra_set_contp, scm_aind, scm_raprin1
1809 These functions have been deprecated since early 2005.
1811 * Changes to the distribution
1813 ** Guile's license is now LGPLv3+
1815 In other words the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3 or
1816 later (at the discretion of each person that chooses to redistribute
1821 Guile's build is visually quieter, due to the use of Automake 1.11's
1822 AM_SILENT_RULES. Build as `make V=1' to see all of the output.
1824 ** GOOPS documentation folded into Guile reference manual
1826 GOOPS, Guile's object system, used to be documented in separate manuals.
1827 This content is now included in Guile's manual directly.
1829 ** `guile-config' will be deprecated in favor of `pkg-config'
1831 `guile-config' has been rewritten to get its information from
1832 `pkg-config', so this should be a transparent change. Note however that
1833 guile.m4 has yet to be modified to call pkg-config instead of
1836 ** Guile now provides `guile-2.0.pc' instead of `guile-1.8.pc'
1838 Programs that use `pkg-config' to find Guile or one of its Autoconf
1839 macros should now require `guile-2.0' instead of `guile-1.8'.
1841 ** New installation directory: $(pkglibdir)/1.9/ccache
1843 If $(libdir) is /usr/lib, for example, Guile will install its .go files
1844 to /usr/lib/guile/1.9/ccache. These files are architecture-specific.
1846 ** Parallel installability fixes
1848 Guile now installs its header files to a effective-version-specific
1849 directory, and includes the effective version (e.g. 2.0) in the library
1850 name (e.g. libguile-2.0.so).
1852 This change should be transparent to users, who should detect Guile via
1853 the guile.m4 macro, or the guile-2.0.pc pkg-config file. It will allow
1854 parallel installs for multiple versions of Guile development
1857 ** Dynamically loadable extensions may be placed in a Guile-specific path
1859 Before, Guile only searched the system library paths for extensions
1860 (e.g. /usr/lib), which meant that the names of Guile extensions had to
1861 be globally unique. Installing them to a Guile-specific extensions
1862 directory is cleaner. Use `pkg-config --variable=extensiondir
1863 guile-2.0' to get the location of the extensions directory.
1865 ** User Scheme code may be placed in a version-specific path
1867 Before, there was only one way to install user Scheme code to a
1868 version-specific Guile directory: install to Guile's own path,
1869 e.g. /usr/share/guile/2.0. The site directory,
1870 e.g. /usr/share/guile/site, was unversioned. This has been changed to
1871 add a version-specific site directory, e.g. /usr/share/guile/site/2.0,
1872 searched before the global site directory.
1874 ** New dependency: libgc
1876 See http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/, for more information.
1878 ** New dependency: GNU libunistring
1880 See http://www.gnu.org/software/libunistring/, for more information. Our
1881 Unicode support uses routines from libunistring.
1883 ** New dependency: libffi
1885 See http://sourceware.org/libffi/, for more information.
1889 Changes in 1.8.8 (since 1.8.7)
1893 ** Fix possible buffer overruns when parsing numbers
1894 ** Avoid clash with system setjmp/longjmp on IA64
1895 ** Fix `wrong type arg' exceptions with IPv6 addresses
1898 Changes in 1.8.7 (since 1.8.6)
1900 * New modules (see the manual for details)
1902 ** `(srfi srfi-98)', an interface to access environment variables
1906 ** Fix compilation with `--disable-deprecated'
1907 ** Fix %fast-slot-ref/set!, to avoid possible segmentation fault
1908 ** Fix MinGW build problem caused by HAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC confusion
1909 ** Fix build problem when scm_t_timespec is different from struct timespec
1910 ** Fix build when compiled with -Wundef -Werror
1911 ** More build fixes for `alphaev56-dec-osf5.1b' (Tru64)
1912 ** Build fixes for `powerpc-ibm-aix5.3.0.0' (AIX 5.3)
1913 ** With GCC, always compile with `-mieee' on `alpha*' and `sh*'
1914 ** Better diagnose broken `(strftime "%z" ...)' in `time.test' (bug #24130)
1915 ** Fix parsing of SRFI-88/postfix keywords longer than 128 characters
1916 ** Fix reading of complex numbers where both parts are inexact decimals
1918 ** Allow @ macro to work with (ice-9 syncase)
1920 Previously, use of the @ macro in a module whose code is being
1921 transformed by (ice-9 syncase) would cause an "Invalid syntax" error.
1922 Now it works as you would expect (giving the value of the specified
1925 ** Have `scm_take_locale_symbol ()' return an interned symbol (bug #25865)
1928 Changes in 1.8.6 (since 1.8.5)
1930 * New features (see the manual for details)
1932 ** New convenience function `scm_c_symbol_length ()'
1934 ** Single stepping through code from Emacs
1936 When you use GDS to evaluate Scheme code from Emacs, you can now use
1937 `C-u' to indicate that you want to single step through that code. See
1938 `Evaluating Scheme Code' in the manual for more details.
1940 ** New "guile(1)" man page!
1942 * Changes to the distribution
1944 ** Automake's `AM_MAINTAINER_MODE' is no longer used
1946 Thus, the `--enable-maintainer-mode' configure option is no longer
1947 available: Guile is now always configured in "maintainer mode".
1949 ** `ChangeLog' files are no longer updated
1951 Instead, changes are detailed in the version control system's logs. See
1952 the top-level `ChangeLog' files for details.
1957 ** `symbol->string' now returns a read-only string, as per R5RS
1958 ** Fix incorrect handling of the FLAGS argument of `fold-matches'
1959 ** `guile-config link' now prints `-L$libdir' before `-lguile'
1960 ** Fix memory corruption involving GOOPS' `class-redefinition'
1961 ** Fix possible deadlock in `mutex-lock'
1962 ** Fix build issue on Tru64 and ia64-hp-hpux11.23 (`SCM_UNPACK' macro)
1963 ** Fix build issue on mips, mipsel, powerpc and ia64 (stack direction)
1964 ** Fix build issue on hppa2.0w-hp-hpux11.11 (`dirent64' and `readdir64_r')
1965 ** Fix build issue on i386-unknown-freebsd7.0 ("break strict-aliasing rules")
1966 ** Fix misleading output from `(help rationalize)'
1967 ** Fix build failure on Debian hppa architecture (bad stack growth detection)
1968 ** Fix `gcd' when called with a single, negative argument.
1969 ** Fix `Stack overflow' errors seen when building on some platforms
1970 ** Fix bug when `scm_with_guile ()' was called several times from the
1972 ** The handler of SRFI-34 `with-exception-handler' is now invoked in the
1973 dynamic environment of the call to `raise'
1974 ** Fix potential deadlock in `make-struct'
1975 ** Fix compilation problem with libltdl from Libtool 2.2.x
1976 ** Fix sloppy bound checking in `string-{ref,set!}' with the empty string
1979 Changes in 1.8.5 (since 1.8.4)
1981 * Infrastructure changes
1983 ** Guile repository switched from CVS to Git
1985 The new repository can be accessed using
1986 "git-clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/guile.git", or can be browsed on-line at
1987 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=guile.git . See `README' for details.
1989 ** Add support for `pkg-config'
1991 See "Autoconf Support" in the manual for details.
1993 * New modules (see the manual for details)
1997 * New features (see the manual for details)
1999 ** New `postfix' read option, for SRFI-88 keyword syntax
2000 ** Some I/O primitives have been inlined, which improves I/O performance
2001 ** New object-based traps infrastructure
2003 This is a GOOPS-based infrastructure that builds on Guile's low-level
2004 evaluator trap calls and facilitates the development of debugging
2005 features like single-stepping, breakpoints, tracing and profiling.
2006 See the `Traps' node of the manual for details.
2008 ** New support for working on Guile code from within Emacs
2010 Guile now incorporates the `GDS' library (previously distributed
2011 separately) for working on Guile code from within Emacs. See the
2012 `Using Guile In Emacs' node of the manual for details.
2016 ** `scm_add_slot ()' no longer segfaults (fixes bug #22369)
2017 ** Fixed `(ice-9 match)' for patterns like `((_ ...) ...)'
2019 Previously, expressions like `(match '((foo) (bar)) (((_ ...) ...) #t))'
2020 would trigger an unbound variable error for `match:andmap'.
2022 ** `(oop goops describe)' now properly provides the `describe' feature
2023 ** Fixed `args-fold' from `(srfi srfi-37)'
2025 Previously, parsing short option names of argument-less options would
2026 lead to a stack overflow.
2028 ** `(srfi srfi-35)' is now visible through `cond-expand'
2029 ** Fixed type-checking for the second argument of `eval'
2030 ** Fixed type-checking for SRFI-1 `partition'
2031 ** Fixed `struct-ref' and `struct-set!' on "light structs"
2032 ** Honor struct field access rights in GOOPS
2033 ** Changed the storage strategy of source properties, which fixes a deadlock
2034 ** Allow compilation of Guile-using programs in C99 mode with GCC 4.3 and later
2035 ** Fixed build issue for GNU/Linux on IA64
2036 ** Fixed build issues on NetBSD 1.6
2037 ** Fixed build issue on Solaris 2.10 x86_64
2038 ** Fixed build issue with DEC/Compaq/HP's compiler
2039 ** Fixed `scm_from_complex_double' build issue on FreeBSD
2040 ** Fixed `alloca' build issue on FreeBSD 6
2041 ** Removed use of non-portable makefile constructs
2042 ** Fixed shadowing of libc's <random.h> on Tru64, which broke compilation
2043 ** Make sure all tests honor `$TMPDIR'
2046 Changes in 1.8.4 (since 1.8.3)
2050 ** CR (ASCII 0x0d) is (again) recognized as a token delimiter by the reader
2051 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when displaying the
2052 backtrace of a stack with a promise object (made by `delay') in it.
2053 ** Make `accept' leave guile mode while blocking
2054 ** `scm_c_read ()' and `scm_c_write ()' now type-check their port argument
2055 ** Fixed a build problem on AIX (use of func_data identifier)
2056 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when hashx-ref or hashx-set! was
2057 called with an associator proc that returns neither a pair nor #f.
2058 ** Secondary threads now always return a valid module for (current-module).
2059 ** Avoid MacOS build problems caused by incorrect combination of "64"
2060 system and library calls.
2061 ** `guile-snarf' now honors `$TMPDIR'
2062 ** `guile-config compile' now reports CPPFLAGS used at compile-time
2063 ** Fixed build with Sun Studio (Solaris 9)
2064 ** Fixed wrong-type-arg errors when creating zero length SRFI-4
2065 uniform vectors on AIX.
2066 ** Fixed a deadlock that occurs upon GC with multiple threads.
2067 ** Fixed compile problem with GCC on Solaris and AIX (use of _Complex_I)
2068 ** Fixed autotool-derived build problems on AIX 6.1.
2069 ** Fixed NetBSD/alpha support
2070 ** Fixed MacOS build problem caused by use of rl_get_keymap(_name)
2072 * New modules (see the manual for details)
2076 * Documentation fixes and improvements
2078 ** Removed premature breakpoint documentation
2080 The features described are not available in the series of 1.8.x
2081 releases, so the documentation was misleading and has been removed.
2083 ** More about Guile's default *random-state* variable
2085 ** GOOPS: more about how to use `next-method'
2087 * Changes to the distribution
2089 ** Corrected a few files that referred incorrectly to the old GPL + special exception licence
2091 In fact Guile since 1.8.0 has been licensed with the GNU Lesser
2092 General Public License, and the few incorrect files have now been
2093 fixed to agree with the rest of the Guile distribution.
2095 ** Removed unnecessary extra copies of COPYING*
2097 The distribution now contains a single COPYING.LESSER at its top level.
2100 Changes in 1.8.3 (since 1.8.2)
2102 * New modules (see the manual for details)
2109 ** The `(ice-9 slib)' module now works as expected
2110 ** Expressions like "(set! 'x #t)" no longer yield a crash
2111 ** Warnings about duplicate bindings now go to stderr
2112 ** A memory leak in `make-socket-address' was fixed
2113 ** Alignment issues (e.g., on SPARC) in network routines were fixed
2114 ** A threading issue that showed up at least on NetBSD was fixed
2115 ** Build problems on Solaris and IRIX fixed
2117 * Implementation improvements
2119 ** The reader is now faster, which reduces startup time
2120 ** Procedures returned by `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' are faster
2123 Changes in 1.8.2 (since 1.8.1):
2125 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
2127 ** set-program-arguments
2130 * Incompatible changes
2132 ** The body of a top-level `define' no longer sees the binding being created
2134 In a top-level `define', the binding being created is no longer visible
2135 from the `define' body. This breaks code like
2136 "(define foo (begin (set! foo 1) (+ foo 1)))", where `foo' is now
2137 unbound in the body. However, such code was not R5RS-compliant anyway,
2142 ** Fractions were not `equal?' if stored in unreduced form.
2143 (A subtle problem, since printing a value reduced it, making it work.)
2144 ** srfi-60 `copy-bit' failed on 64-bit systems
2145 ** "guile --use-srfi" option at the REPL can replace core functions
2146 (Programs run with that option were ok, but in the interactive REPL
2147 the core bindings got priority, preventing SRFI replacements or
2149 ** `regexp-exec' doesn't abort() on #\nul in the input or bad flags arg
2150 ** `kill' on mingw throws an error for a PID other than oneself
2151 ** Procedure names are attached to procedure-with-setters
2152 ** Array read syntax works with negative lower bound
2153 ** `array-in-bounds?' fix if an array has different lower bounds on each index
2154 ** `*' returns exact 0 for "(* inexact 0)"
2155 This follows what it always did for "(* 0 inexact)".
2156 ** SRFI-19: Value returned by `(current-time time-process)' was incorrect
2157 ** SRFI-19: `date->julian-day' did not account for timezone offset
2158 ** `ttyname' no longer crashes when passed a non-tty argument
2159 ** `inet-ntop' no longer crashes on SPARC when passed an `AF_INET' address
2160 ** Small memory leaks have been fixed in `make-fluid' and `add-history'
2161 ** GOOPS: Fixed a bug in `method-more-specific?'
2162 ** Build problems on Solaris fixed
2163 ** Build problems on HP-UX IA64 fixed
2164 ** Build problems on MinGW fixed
2167 Changes in 1.8.1 (since 1.8.0):
2169 * LFS functions are now used to access 64-bit files on 32-bit systems.
2171 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
2173 ** primitive-_exit - [Scheme] the-root-module
2174 ** scm_primitive__exit - [C]
2175 ** make-completion-function - [Scheme] (ice-9 readline)
2176 ** scm_c_locale_stringn_to_number - [C]
2177 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse [C]
2178 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse_x [C]
2186 ** Build problems have been fixed on MacOS, SunOS, and QNX.
2188 ** `strftime' fix sign of %z timezone offset.
2190 ** A one-dimensional array can now be 'equal?' to a vector.
2192 ** Structures, records, and SRFI-9 records can now be compared with `equal?'.
2194 ** SRFI-14 standard char sets are recomputed upon a successful `setlocale'.
2196 ** `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' now have strict type checks.
2198 Record accessor and modifier procedures now throw an error if the
2199 record type of the record they're given is not the type expected.
2200 (Previously accessors returned #f and modifiers silently did nothing).
2202 ** It is now OK to use both autoload and use-modules on a given module.
2204 ** `apply' checks the number of arguments more carefully on "0 or 1" funcs.
2206 Previously there was no checking on primatives like make-vector that
2207 accept "one or two" arguments. Now there is.
2209 ** The srfi-1 assoc function now calls its equality predicate properly.
2211 Previously srfi-1 assoc would call the equality predicate with the key
2212 last. According to the SRFI, the key should be first.
2214 ** A bug in n-par-for-each and n-for-each-par-map has been fixed.
2216 ** The array-set! procedure no longer segfaults when given a bit vector.
2218 ** Bugs in make-shared-array have been fixed.
2220 ** string<? and friends now follow char<? etc order on 8-bit chars.
2222 ** The format procedure now handles inf and nan values for ~f correctly.
2224 ** exact->inexact should no longer overflow when given certain large fractions.
2226 ** srfi-9 accessor and modifier procedures now have strict record type checks.
2228 This matches the srfi-9 specification.
2230 ** (ice-9 ftw) procedures won't ignore different files with same inode number.
2232 Previously the (ice-9 ftw) procedures would ignore any file that had
2233 the same inode number as a file they had already seen, even if that
2234 file was on a different device.
2237 Changes in 1.8.0 (changes since the 1.6.x series):
2239 * Changes to the distribution
2241 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
2243 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
2245 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
2247 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
2249 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
2251 That is, things like HAVE_STRING_H no longer leak from Guile's
2254 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
2256 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
2257 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
2258 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
2259 so the current effective-version is "1.8". The effective version
2260 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
2261 items like the versioned share directory name
2262 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.8.
2264 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
2265 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
2266 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
2267 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
2268 with each micro release during a stable series.
2270 ** Thread implementation has changed.
2272 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
2273 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
2274 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
2275 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
2276 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
2279 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
2280 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
2281 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
2282 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
2285 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
2286 in which case "null" threads are used.
2288 See the manual for details, nodes "Initialization", "Multi-Threading",
2289 "Blocking", and others.
2291 ** There is the new notion of 'discouraged' features.
2293 This is a milder form of deprecation.
2295 Things that are discouraged should not be used in new code, but it is
2296 OK to leave them in old code for now. When a discouraged feature is
2297 used, no warning message is printed like there is for 'deprecated'
2298 features. Also, things that are merely discouraged are nevertheless
2299 implemented efficiently, while deprecated features can be very slow.
2301 You can omit discouraged features from libguile by configuring it with
2302 the '--disable-discouraged' option.
2304 ** Deprecation warnings can be controlled at run-time.
2306 (debug-enable 'warn-deprecated) switches them on and (debug-disable
2307 'warn-deprecated) switches them off.
2309 ** Support for SRFI 61, extended cond syntax for multiple values has
2312 This SRFI is always available.
2314 ** Support for require-extension, SRFI-55, has been added.
2316 The SRFI-55 special form `require-extension' has been added. It is
2317 available at startup, and provides a portable way to load Scheme
2318 extensions. SRFI-55 only requires support for one type of extension,
2319 "srfi"; so a set of SRFIs may be loaded via (require-extension (srfi 1
2322 ** New module (srfi srfi-26) provides support for `cut' and `cute'.
2324 The (srfi srfi-26) module is an implementation of SRFI-26 which
2325 provides the `cut' and `cute' syntax. These may be used to specialize
2326 parameters without currying.
2328 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
2330 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
2331 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
2333 ** The modules (srfi srfi-13), (srfi srfi-14) and (srfi srfi-4) have
2334 been merged with the core, making their functionality always
2337 The modules are still available, tho, and you could use them together
2338 with a renaming import, for example.
2340 ** Guile no longer includes its own version of libltdl.
2342 The official version is good enough now.
2344 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
2346 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
2347 provided. Use 'make html'.
2349 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
2351 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when you
2352 don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but where you
2353 have some section(s) of code which you consider can run in parallel to
2354 other sections. See ice-9/serialize.scm for more information.
2356 ** The configure option '--disable-arrays' has been removed.
2358 Support for arrays and uniform numeric arrays is now always included
2361 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2363 ** New command line option `-L'.
2365 This option adds a directory to the front of the load path.
2367 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
2369 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
2370 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
2372 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
2374 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
2375 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
2377 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
2379 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
2380 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
2383 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
2386 (define-module (demo)
2390 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
2393 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2395 ** Guardians have changed back to their original semantics
2397 Guardians now behave like described in the paper by Dybvig et al. In
2398 particular, they no longer make guarantees about the order in which
2399 they return objects, and they can no longer be greedy.
2401 They no longer drop cyclic data structures.
2403 The C function scm_make_guardian has been changed incompatibly and no
2404 longer takes the 'greedy_p' argument.
2406 ** New function hashx-remove!
2408 This function completes the set of 'hashx' functions.
2410 ** The concept of dynamic roots has been factored into continuation
2411 barriers and dynamic states.
2413 Each thread has a current dynamic state that carries the values of the
2414 fluids. You can create and copy dynamic states and use them as the
2415 second argument for 'eval'. See "Fluids and Dynamic States" in the
2418 To restrict the influence that captured continuations can have on the
2419 control flow, you can errect continuation barriers. See "Continuation
2420 Barriers" in the manual.
2422 The function call-with-dynamic-root now essentially temporarily
2423 installs a new dynamic state and errects a continuation barrier.
2425 ** The default load path no longer includes "." at the end.
2427 Automatically loading modules from the current directory should not
2428 happen by default. If you want to allow it in a more controlled
2429 manner, set the environment variable GUILE_LOAD_PATH or the Scheme
2430 variable %load-path.
2432 ** The uniform vector and array support has been overhauled.
2434 It now complies with SRFI-4 and the weird prototype based uniform
2435 array creation has been deprecated. See the manual for more details.
2437 Some non-compatible changes have been made:
2438 - characters can no longer be stored into byte arrays.
2439 - strings and bit vectors are no longer considered to be uniform numeric
2441 - array-rank throws an error for non-arrays instead of returning zero.
2442 - array-ref does no longer accept non-arrays when no indices are given.
2444 There is the new notion of 'generalized vectors' and corresponding
2445 procedures like 'generalized-vector-ref'. Generalized vectors include
2446 strings, bitvectors, ordinary vectors, and uniform numeric vectors.
2448 Arrays use generalized vectors as their storage, so that you still
2449 have arrays of characters, bits, etc. However, uniform-array-read!
2450 and uniform-array-write can no longer read/write strings and
2453 ** There is now support for copy-on-write substrings, mutation-sharing
2454 substrings and read-only strings.
2456 Three new procedures are related to this: substring/shared,
2457 substring/copy, and substring/read-only. See the manual for more
2460 ** Backtraces will now highlight the value that caused the error.
2462 By default, these values are enclosed in "{...}", such as in this
2471 <unnamed port>:1:1: In procedure car in expression (car (quote a)):
2472 <unnamed port>:1:1: Wrong type (expecting pair): a
2473 ABORT: (wrong-type-arg)
2475 The prefix and suffix used for highlighting can be set via the two new
2476 printer options 'highlight-prefix' and 'highlight-suffix'. For
2477 example, putting this into ~/.guile will output the bad value in bold
2478 on an ANSI terminal:
2480 (print-set! highlight-prefix "\x1b[1m")
2481 (print-set! highlight-suffix "\x1b[22m")
2484 ** 'gettext' support for internationalization has been added.
2486 See the manual for details.
2488 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
2490 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
2493 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
2495 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
2496 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
2497 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
2498 '@' as a target of 'set!', as in (set! (@ mod var) val).
2500 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
2501 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
2502 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
2505 ** Keyword syntax has been made more disciplined.
2507 Previously, the name of a keyword was read as a 'token' but printed as
2508 a symbol. Now, it is read as a general Scheme datum which must be a
2519 ERROR: In expression (a b c):
2523 ERROR: Unbound variable: foo
2528 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): 12
2532 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): (a b c)
2536 ** The printing of symbols that might look like keywords can be
2539 The new printer option 'quote-keywordish-symbols' controls how symbols
2540 are printed that have a colon as their first or last character. The
2541 default now is to only quote a symbol with #{...}# when the read
2542 option 'keywords' is not '#f'. Thus:
2544 guile> (define foo (string->symbol ":foo"))
2545 guile> (read-set! keywords #f)
2548 guile> (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
2551 guile> (print-set! quote-keywordish-symbols #f)
2555 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
2557 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
2558 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
2559 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
2562 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
2565 ** The module system now checks for duplicate bindings.
2567 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
2570 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more 'duplicates'
2571 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
2574 (define-module (foo)
2579 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
2580 has been detected is to
2582 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
2583 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
2584 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
2587 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
2590 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
2592 to your .guile init file.
2594 ** New define-module option: :replace
2596 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
2599 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
2600 for the core binding `format'.
2602 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
2604 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
2605 a prefix to all imported bindings.
2607 (define-module (foo)
2608 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
2610 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
2613 ** Conflicting generic functions can be automatically merged.
2615 When two imported bindings conflict and they are both generic
2616 functions, the two functions can now be merged automatically. This is
2617 activated with the 'duplicates' handler 'merge-generics'.
2619 ** New function: effective-version
2621 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
2622 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
2623 to the distribution" above.
2625 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
2627 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
2628 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
2630 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
2632 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
2633 instead of blocking and indicate failure.
2635 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
2637 The function 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
2638 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
2641 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
2643 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
2645 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
2647 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
2648 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
2649 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
2652 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
2653 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
2654 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
2655 'system-async-mark'.
2657 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
2658 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
2660 When a thread blocks on a mutex, a condition variable or is waiting
2661 for IO to be possible, it will still execute system asyncs. This can
2662 be used to interrupt such a thread by making it execute a 'throw', for
2665 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
2667 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
2668 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
2671 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
2672 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
2674 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
2675 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
2676 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
2677 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
2678 level for the current thread.
2680 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
2682 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
2684 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
2685 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
2688 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
2690 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
2692 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
2695 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
2697 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
2700 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
2701 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
2702 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
2704 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
2705 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
2706 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
2707 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
2718 ERROR: Numerical overflow
2720 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
2723 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
2725 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
2726 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
2727 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
2738 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
2740 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
2741 them is also done exactly, of course:
2746 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
2747 for exact arguments.
2749 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
2750 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
2752 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
2754 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
2755 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
2756 equal to a floating point number. For example:
2758 (inexact->exact 1.234)
2759 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
2761 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitly:
2763 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
2766 ** New function 'rationalize'.
2768 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
2769 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
2771 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
2774 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
2775 result when both its arguments are exact.
2777 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
2779 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
2780 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
2781 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
2783 ** Guile now has uninterned symbols.
2785 The new function 'make-symbol' will return an uninterned symbol. This
2786 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
2787 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
2789 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
2792 ** pretty-print has more options.
2794 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
2795 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
2796 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
2798 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
2800 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
2801 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
2802 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
2804 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
2806 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
2807 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
2809 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
2811 Change your code to use 'define-macro' or r5rs macros. Also, be aware
2812 that macro expansion will not be done during evaluation, but prior to
2815 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
2817 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
2818 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
2819 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
2820 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
2821 without the soft port blocking.
2823 ** Deprecated: undefine
2825 There is no replacement for undefine.
2827 ** The functions make-keyword-from-dash-symbol and keyword-dash-symbol
2828 have been discouraged.
2830 They are relics from a time where a keyword like #:foo was used
2831 directly as a Tcl option "-foo" and thus keywords were internally
2832 stored as a symbol with a starting dash. We now store a symbol
2835 Use symbol->keyword and keyword->symbol instead.
2837 ** The `cheap' debug option is now obsolete
2839 Evaluator trap calls are now unconditionally "cheap" - in other words,
2840 they pass a debug object to the trap handler rather than a full
2841 continuation. The trap handler code can capture a full continuation
2842 by using `call-with-current-continuation' in the usual way, if it so
2845 The `cheap' option is retained for now so as not to break existing
2846 code which gets or sets it, but setting it now has no effect. It will
2847 be removed in the next major Guile release.
2849 ** Evaluator trap calls now support `tweaking'
2851 `Tweaking' means that the trap handler code can modify the Scheme
2852 expression that is about to be evaluated (in the case of an
2853 enter-frame trap) or the value that is being returned (in the case of
2854 an exit-frame trap). The trap handler code indicates that it wants to
2855 do this by returning a pair whose car is the symbol 'instead and whose
2856 cdr is the modified expression or return value.
2858 * Changes to the C interface
2860 ** The functions scm_hash_fn_remove_x and scm_hashx_remove_x no longer
2861 take a 'delete' function argument.
2863 This argument makes no sense since the delete function is used to
2864 remove a pair from an alist, and this must not be configurable.
2866 This is an incompatible change.
2868 ** The GH interface is now subject to the deprecation mechanism
2870 The GH interface has been deprecated for quite some time but now it is
2871 actually removed from Guile when it is configured with
2872 --disable-deprecated.
2874 See the manual "Transitioning away from GH" for more information.
2876 ** A new family of functions for converting between C values and
2877 Scheme values has been added.
2879 These functions follow a common naming scheme and are designed to be
2880 easier to use, thread-safe and more future-proof than the older
2883 - int scm_is_* (...)
2885 These are predicates that return a C boolean: 1 or 0. Instead of
2886 SCM_NFALSEP, you can now use scm_is_true, for example.
2888 - <type> scm_to_<type> (SCM val, ...)
2890 These are functions that convert a Scheme value into an appropriate
2891 C value. For example, you can use scm_to_int to safely convert from
2894 - SCM scm_from_<type> (<type> val, ...)
2896 These functions convert from a C type to a SCM value; for example,
2897 scm_from_int for ints.
2899 There is a huge number of these functions, for numbers, strings,
2900 symbols, vectors, etc. They are documented in the reference manual in
2901 the API section together with the types that they apply to.
2903 ** New functions for dealing with complex numbers in C have been added.
2905 The new functions are scm_c_make_rectangular, scm_c_make_polar,
2906 scm_c_real_part, scm_c_imag_part, scm_c_magnitude and scm_c_angle.
2907 They work like scm_make_rectangular etc but take or return doubles
2910 ** The function scm_make_complex has been discouraged.
2912 Use scm_c_make_rectangular instead.
2914 ** The INUM macros have been deprecated.
2916 A lot of code uses these macros to do general integer conversions,
2917 although the macros only work correctly with fixnums. Use the
2918 following alternatives.
2920 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
2921 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
2922 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
2923 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
2925 SCM_VALIDATE_INUM_* -> Do not use these; scm_to_int, etc. will
2926 do the validating for you.
2928 ** The scm_num2<type> and scm_<type>2num functions and scm_make_real
2929 have been discouraged.
2931 Use the newer scm_to_<type> and scm_from_<type> functions instead for
2932 new code. The functions have been discouraged since they don't fit
2935 ** The 'boolean' macros SCM_FALSEP etc have been discouraged.
2937 They have strange names, especially SCM_NFALSEP, and SCM_BOOLP
2938 evaluates its argument twice. Use scm_is_true, etc. instead for new
2941 ** The macro SCM_EQ_P has been discouraged.
2943 Use scm_is_eq for new code, which fits better into the naming
2946 ** The macros SCM_CONSP, SCM_NCONSP, SCM_NULLP, and SCM_NNULLP have
2949 Use the function scm_is_pair or scm_is_null instead.
2951 ** The functions scm_round and scm_truncate have been deprecated and
2952 are now available as scm_c_round and scm_c_truncate, respectively.
2954 These functions occupy the names that scm_round_number and
2955 scm_truncate_number should have.
2957 ** The functions scm_c_string2str, scm_c_substring2str, and
2958 scm_c_symbol2str have been deprecated.
2960 Use scm_to_locale_stringbuf or similar instead, maybe together with
2963 ** New functions scm_c_make_string, scm_c_string_length,
2964 scm_c_string_ref, scm_c_string_set_x, scm_c_substring,
2965 scm_c_substring_shared, scm_c_substring_copy.
2967 These are like scm_make_string, scm_length, etc. but are slightly
2968 easier to use from C.
2970 ** The macros SCM_STRINGP, SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_STRING_LENGTH,
2971 SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, and SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH have been deprecated.
2973 They export too many assumptions about the implementation of strings
2974 and symbols that are no longer true in the presence of
2975 mutation-sharing substrings and when Guile switches to some form of
2978 When working with strings, it is often best to use the normal string
2979 functions provided by Guile, such as scm_c_string_ref,
2980 scm_c_string_set_x, scm_string_append, etc. Be sure to look in the
2981 manual since many more such functions are now provided than
2984 When you want to convert a SCM string to a C string, use the
2985 scm_to_locale_string function or similar instead. For symbols, use
2986 scm_symbol_to_string and then work with that string. Because of the
2987 new string representation, scm_symbol_to_string does not need to copy
2988 and is thus quite efficient.
2990 ** Some string, symbol and keyword functions have been discouraged.
2992 They don't fit into the uniform naming scheme and are not explicit
2993 about the character encoding.
2995 Replace according to the following table:
2997 scm_allocate_string -> scm_c_make_string
2998 scm_take_str -> scm_take_locale_stringn
2999 scm_take0str -> scm_take_locale_string
3000 scm_mem2string -> scm_from_locale_stringn
3001 scm_str2string -> scm_from_locale_string
3002 scm_makfrom0str -> scm_from_locale_string
3003 scm_mem2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symboln
3004 scm_mem2uninterned_symbol -> scm_from_locale_stringn + scm_make_symbol
3005 scm_str2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symbol
3007 SCM_SYMBOL_HASH -> scm_hashq
3008 SCM_SYMBOL_INTERNED_P -> scm_symbol_interned_p
3010 scm_c_make_keyword -> scm_from_locale_keyword
3012 ** The functions scm_keyword_to_symbol and sym_symbol_to_keyword are
3013 now also available to C code.
3015 ** SCM_KEYWORDP and SCM_KEYWORDSYM have been deprecated.
3017 Use scm_is_keyword and scm_keyword_to_symbol instead, but note that
3018 the latter returns the true name of the keyword, not the 'dash name',
3019 as SCM_KEYWORDSYM used to do.
3021 ** A new way to access arrays in a thread-safe and efficient way has
3024 See the manual, node "Accessing Arrays From C".
3026 ** The old uniform vector and bitvector implementations have been
3027 unceremoniously removed.
3029 This implementation exposed the details of the tagging system of
3030 Guile. Use the new C API explained in the manual in node "Uniform
3031 Numeric Vectors" and "Bit Vectors", respectively.
3033 The following macros are gone: SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE,
3034 SCM_UVECTOR_MAXLENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_UVECTOR_TAG,
3035 SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVECTOR_P, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE,
3036 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
3037 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_BITVECTOR_TAG,
3038 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVEC_REF, SCM_BITVEC_SET,
3041 ** The macros dealing with vectors have been deprecated.
3043 Use the new functions scm_is_vector, scm_vector_elements,
3044 scm_vector_writable_elements, etc, or scm_is_simple_vector,
3045 SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_REF, SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_SET, etc instead. See the
3046 manual for more details.
3048 Deprecated are SCM_VECTORP, SCM_VELTS, SCM_VECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
3049 SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_REF, SCM_VECTOR_SET, SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS.
3051 The following macros have been removed: SCM_VECTOR_BASE,
3052 SCM_SET_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_MAKE_VECTOR_TAG, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH,
3053 SCM_VELTS_AS_STACKITEMS, SCM_SETVELTS, SCM_GC_WRITABLE_VELTS.
3055 ** Some C functions and macros related to arrays have been deprecated.
3057 Migrate according to the following table:
3059 scm_make_uve -> scm_make_typed_array, scm_make_u8vector etc.
3060 scm_make_ra -> scm_make_array
3061 scm_shap2ra -> scm_make_array
3062 scm_cvref -> scm_c_generalized_vector_ref
3063 scm_ra_set_contp -> do not use
3064 scm_aind -> scm_array_handle_pos
3065 scm_raprin1 -> scm_display or scm_write
3067 SCM_ARRAYP -> scm_is_array
3068 SCM_ARRAY_NDIM -> scm_c_array_rank
3069 SCM_ARRAY_DIMS -> scm_array_handle_dims
3070 SCM_ARRAY_CONTP -> do not use
3071 SCM_ARRAY_MEM -> do not use
3072 SCM_ARRAY_V -> scm_array_handle_elements or similar
3073 SCM_ARRAY_BASE -> do not use
3075 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
3077 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which returns a pointer
3078 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
3080 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
3081 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
3082 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
3083 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
3085 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SCM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
3087 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
3088 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
3089 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
3091 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
3092 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
3094 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
3095 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
3096 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
3097 smob word. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
3099 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and re-entries.
3101 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
3102 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
3103 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
3104 prevent a potential memory leak:
3111 scm_dynwind_begin (0);
3113 mem = scm_malloc (100);
3114 scm_dynwind_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY);
3116 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
3117 SCM_DYNWIND_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless.
3124 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY, MEM will be freed by
3125 SCM_DYNWIND_END as well.
3129 For full documentation, see the node "Dynamic Wind" in the manual.
3131 ** New function scm_dynwind_free
3133 This function calls 'free' on a given pointer when a dynwind context
3134 is left. Thus the call to scm_dynwind_unwind_handler above could be
3135 replaced with simply scm_dynwind_free (mem).
3137 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
3138 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
3140 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
3142 ** New functions scm_dynwind_block_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs
3144 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
3145 scm_dynwind_block_asyncs in a 'dynwind context' (see above). Likewise for
3146 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs.
3148 ** The macros SCM_DEFER_INTS, SCM_ALLOW_INTS, SCM_REDEFER_INTS,
3149 SCM_REALLOW_INTS have been deprecated.
3151 They do no longer fulfill their original role of blocking signal
3152 delivery. Depending on what you want to achieve, replace a pair of
3153 SCM_DEFER_INTS and SCM_ALLOW_INTS with a dynwind context that locks a
3154 mutex, blocks asyncs, or both. See node "Critical Sections" in the
3157 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
3159 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
3160 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
3161 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
3163 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
3165 C code can now use scm_dynwind_current_<foo>_port in a 'dynwind
3166 context' (see above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
3168 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
3170 C code can now use scm_dynwind_fluid in a 'dynwind context' (see
3171 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
3173 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
3175 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
3176 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
3177 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
3179 ** The functions scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed.
3181 You should not have used them.
3183 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
3185 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
3186 private or renamed with a more suitable public name.
3188 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
3190 This macro is not intended for public use.
3192 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
3194 Use scm_is_true (scm_inexact_p (...)) instead.
3196 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
3198 Use scm_is_real instead.
3200 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
3202 Use scm_is_complex instead.
3204 ** Some preprocessor defines have been deprecated.
3206 These defines indicated whether a certain feature was present in Guile
3207 or not. Going forward, assume that the features are always present.
3209 The macros are: USE_THREADS, GUILE_ISELECT, READER_EXTENSIONS,
3210 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS, DYNAMIC_LINKING.
3212 The following macros have been removed completely: MEMOIZE_LOCALS,
3213 SCM_RECKLESS, SCM_CAUTIOUS.
3215 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
3217 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
3220 ** New function: scm_effective_version
3222 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
3223 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
3224 to the distribution" above.
3226 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
3228 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
3229 arguments are now passed directly:
3231 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
3233 This is an incompatible change.
3235 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
3237 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
3238 function in the init section.
3240 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
3242 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
3244 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
3245 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
3246 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
3247 stays roughly constant.
3249 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
3250 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
3251 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
3252 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
3253 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
3256 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
3257 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
3258 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
3259 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
3261 For understanding the memory usage of a GUILE program, the routine
3262 gc-live-object-stats returns an alist containing the number of live
3263 objects for every type.
3266 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
3268 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
3270 ** The struct scm_cell type has been renamed to scm_t_cell
3272 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
3273 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
3274 initializes a new cell (see below).
3276 ** New functions for memory management
3278 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
3279 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
3280 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
3281 cause aborts in long running programs.
3283 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
3284 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
3286 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
3287 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
3288 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
3289 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
3290 details and for upgrading instructions.
3292 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
3293 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
3294 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
3296 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
3298 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
3299 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
3300 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
3301 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
3302 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
3304 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
3305 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
3306 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
3308 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
3309 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
3311 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
3313 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old
3314 macros had problems because with them allocation and initialization
3315 was separated and the GC could sometimes observe half initialized
3316 cells. Only careful coding by the user of SCM_NEWCELL and
3317 SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
3319 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
3321 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
3324 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
3326 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
3328 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
3330 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or to define macros in
3331 Scheme, using 'define-macro'.
3333 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
3335 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
3336 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
3338 ** The names scm_internal_select, scm_thread_sleep, and
3339 scm_thread_usleep have been discouraged.
3341 Use scm_std_select, scm_std_sleep, scm_std_usleep instead.
3343 ** The GC can no longer be blocked.
3345 The global flags scm_gc_heap_lock and scm_block_gc have been removed.
3346 The GC can now run (partially) concurrently with other code and thus
3347 blocking it is not well defined.
3349 ** Many definitions have been removed that were previously deprecated.
3351 scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify,
3352 scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
3353 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2,
3354 scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY,
3355 SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED,
3356 scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL,
3357 SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL,
3358 SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG,
3359 SCM_NUM_SIGS, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
3360 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
3361 scm_eval2, root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
3362 SCM_RWSTRINGP, scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring,
3363 scm_tc7_substring, sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP,
3364 SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
3365 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
3366 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
3367 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
3368 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
3369 scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern, scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
3370 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
3371 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
3372 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
3373 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
3374 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
3375 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
3376 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
3377 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
3378 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
3379 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
3380 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable,
3381 SCM_CHARS, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH.
3383 * Changes to bundled modules
3387 Using the (ice-9 debug) module no longer automatically switches Guile
3388 to use the debugging evaluator. If you want to switch to the
3389 debugging evaluator (which is needed for backtrace information if you
3390 hit an error), please add an explicit "(debug-enable 'debug)" to your
3391 code just after the code to use (ice-9 debug).
3394 Changes since Guile 1.4:
3396 * Changes to the distribution
3398 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
3400 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
3402 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
3403 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
3404 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
3405 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
3406 indicate major changes in Guile.
3408 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
3409 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
3410 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
3411 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
3413 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
3414 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
3415 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
3416 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
3417 micro version number.
3419 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
3421 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
3423 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
3424 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
3426 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
3428 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
3429 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
3430 See INSTALL and README for more information.
3432 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
3434 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
3435 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
3436 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
3439 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
3441 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
3444 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
3446 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
3447 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
3449 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
3451 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
3452 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
3455 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
3457 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
3460 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
3463 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
3465 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
3467 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
3468 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
3469 open-output-string, get-output-string.
3471 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
3473 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
3475 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
3478 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
3480 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
3482 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
3484 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
3485 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
3486 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
3488 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
3490 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
3492 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
3493 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
3502 See README there for more info.
3504 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
3505 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
3508 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
3510 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
3512 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
3514 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
3515 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
3516 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
3518 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
3520 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
3521 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
3522 to be named `and-let*', of course.
3524 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
3525 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
3527 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
3530 (oop goops describe)
3532 (oop goops active-slot)
3533 (oop goops composite-slot)
3535 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
3536 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
3537 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
3539 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
3541 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
3542 in the default environment:
3544 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
3545 %read-line write-line
3547 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
3548 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
3550 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
3552 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
3555 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
3556 can be used for similar functionality.
3558 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
3560 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
3561 it defines two procedures:
3563 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
3565 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
3566 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
3567 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
3570 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
3572 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
3573 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
3574 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
3575 write large strings.
3577 ** New module (ice-9 match)
3579 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
3580 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
3582 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
3584 for complete documentation.
3586 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
3588 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
3589 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
3590 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
3591 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
3593 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
3594 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
3598 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
3599 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
3600 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
3603 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
3606 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
3607 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
3609 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
3610 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
3613 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
3616 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
3618 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
3620 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3622 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
3624 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
3625 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
3626 Scheme programs easier.
3628 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
3629 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
3630 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
3631 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
3632 `cond-expand' when using this option.
3635 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
3636 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
3638 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
3641 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
3643 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
3644 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
3645 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
3648 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3650 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
3652 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
3653 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
3654 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
3655 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
3656 was also ASCII, for example.
3658 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
3660 tag - no replacement.
3661 fseek - replaced by seek.
3662 list* - replaced by cons*.
3664 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
3668 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
3669 (define m (make-safe-module))
3670 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
3671 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
3672 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
3674 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
3676 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
3677 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
3678 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
3680 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
3682 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
3683 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
3684 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
3685 from the issues related to the module system.
3687 *** New function: load-extension
3689 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
3691 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
3693 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
3694 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
3695 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
3697 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
3699 This function registers a initialization function for use by
3700 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
3701 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
3702 support dynamic linking).
3704 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
3706 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
3707 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
3708 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
3709 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
3712 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
3713 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
3714 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
3715 library and initialize it explicitly.
3717 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
3718 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
3720 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
3722 (define-module (foo bar))
3724 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
3726 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
3728 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
3729 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
3731 (scheme-report-environment 5)
3732 (null-environment 5)
3733 (interaction-environment)
3739 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
3741 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
3742 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
3743 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
3744 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
3746 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
3747 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
3748 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
3749 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
3750 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
3751 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
3752 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
3753 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
3754 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
3755 one eval to the next.
3757 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
3758 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
3759 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
3760 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
3761 subforms are at the top-level as well.
3763 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
3764 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
3765 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
3766 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
3767 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
3768 used in a lexical environment.
3770 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
3771 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
3772 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
3773 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
3774 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
3775 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
3777 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
3779 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
3780 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
3781 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
3782 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
3783 new facilities: selection and renaming.
3785 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
3786 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
3787 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
3789 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
3790 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
3792 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
3793 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
3794 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
3796 (remove-if . zonk-y)
3797 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
3799 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
3800 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
3801 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
3802 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
3805 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
3806 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
3807 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
3808 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
3810 (remove-if . zonk-y)
3811 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
3812 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
3814 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
3815 ;; and all four by upcasing.
3816 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
3817 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
3818 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
3820 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
3822 (remove-if . zonk-y)
3823 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
3824 :renamer upcase-symbol))
3826 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
3827 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
3828 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
3830 See manual for more info.
3832 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
3834 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
3835 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
3836 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
3838 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
3840 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
3841 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
3842 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
3844 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
3845 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
3846 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
3847 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
3849 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
3851 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
3852 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
3854 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
3855 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
3856 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
3857 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
3858 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
3861 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
3862 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
3863 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
3864 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
3865 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
3866 successful and #f if it wasn't.
3868 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
3869 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
3870 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
3871 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
3872 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
3874 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
3875 objects are usually permanent.
3877 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
3878 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
3880 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
3882 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
3883 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
3886 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
3890 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
3895 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
3897 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
3898 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
3899 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
3900 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
3902 ** New function `make-object-property'
3904 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
3905 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
3909 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
3910 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
3914 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
3915 source properties eventually.
3917 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
3919 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
3920 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
3921 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
3923 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
3924 will be removed in the next release.
3926 ** New define-module option: pure
3928 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
3933 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
3936 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
3938 Export names NAME1 ...
3940 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
3941 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
3945 (define-module (foo)
3947 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
3950 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
3955 ** New function: object->string OBJ
3957 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
3959 ** New function: port? X
3961 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
3962 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
3964 ** New function: file-port?
3966 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
3968 ** New function: port-for-each proc
3970 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
3971 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
3972 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
3973 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
3974 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
3976 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
3978 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
3979 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
3980 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
3981 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
3982 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
3985 ** New function: close-fdes fd
3987 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
3988 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
3989 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
3990 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
3993 ** New function: crypt password salt
3995 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
3998 ** New function: chroot path
4000 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
4002 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
4004 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
4007 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
4009 Get or set the priority of the running process.
4011 ** New function: getpass prompt
4013 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
4016 ** New function: flock file operation
4018 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
4020 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
4022 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
4025 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
4027 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
4028 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
4029 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
4030 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
4031 of the temporary file.
4033 ** New function: open-input-string string
4035 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
4036 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
4037 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
4039 ** New function: open-output-string
4041 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
4042 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
4044 ** New function: get-output-string
4046 Return the contents of an output string port.
4048 ** New function: identity
4050 Return the argument.
4052 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
4053 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
4055 ** New function: inet-pton family address
4057 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
4058 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
4059 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
4062 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
4063 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
4065 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
4067 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
4068 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
4069 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
4072 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
4073 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
4074 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
4078 Use `identity' instead.
4084 ** Deprecated: return-it
4088 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
4090 Use `string-length' instead.
4092 ** Deprecated: flags
4094 Use `logior' instead.
4096 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
4098 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
4099 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
4100 port-for-each is more flexible.
4102 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
4103 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
4104 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
4106 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
4108 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
4110 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
4112 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
4114 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
4116 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
4117 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
4119 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
4120 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
4122 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
4123 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
4125 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
4127 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
4128 Removed function: builtin-bindings
4130 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
4131 Use module system operations for all variables.
4133 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
4135 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
4138 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
4140 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
4141 The following bugs have been fixed:
4143 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
4144 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
4147 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
4148 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
4149 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
4151 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
4152 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
4154 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
4155 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
4158 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
4159 The expansion used to be like so:
4161 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
4163 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
4165 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
4167 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
4168 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
4170 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
4172 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
4173 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
4174 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
4178 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
4179 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
4181 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
4186 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
4187 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
4189 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
4190 and `d', other keywords allowed.
4191 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
4193 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
4196 * Changes to the C interface
4198 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
4200 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
4201 with "_t". What a concept.
4203 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
4205 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
4207 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
4211 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
4212 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
4214 *** C Functions removed
4216 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
4217 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
4218 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
4219 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
4220 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
4221 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
4222 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
4224 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
4226 Use scm_mem2string instead.
4228 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
4230 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
4232 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
4233 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
4235 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
4237 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
4240 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
4242 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
4244 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
4246 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
4247 Evaluation" in the manual.
4249 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
4251 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
4252 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
4254 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
4256 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
4257 Constructors" in the manual.
4259 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
4261 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
4262 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
4264 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
4266 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
4268 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
4269 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
4270 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
4272 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
4274 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
4276 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
4277 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
4278 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
4281 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
4283 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
4285 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
4286 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
4288 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
4290 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
4291 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
4292 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
4293 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
4295 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
4296 scm_primitive_property_ref
4297 scm_primitive_property_set_x
4298 scm_primitive_property_del_x
4300 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
4301 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
4303 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
4305 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
4306 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
4307 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
4308 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
4310 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
4312 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
4313 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
4314 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
4315 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
4316 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
4317 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
4318 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
4320 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
4321 scm_remember_upto_here
4323 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
4325 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
4327 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
4328 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
4330 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
4332 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
4334 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
4336 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
4338 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
4340 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
4341 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
4342 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
4343 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
4344 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
4345 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
4347 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
4349 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
4351 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
4352 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
4353 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
4355 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
4357 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
4358 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
4359 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
4361 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
4363 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
4364 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
4367 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
4370 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
4371 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
4374 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
4376 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
4378 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
4380 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
4382 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
4384 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
4386 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
4387 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
4388 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
4389 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
4390 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
4391 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
4392 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
4393 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
4394 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
4395 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
4396 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
4397 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
4398 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
4399 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
4400 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
4402 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
4403 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
4404 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
4405 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
4406 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
4407 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
4408 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
4409 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
4410 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
4411 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
4412 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
4413 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
4414 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
4415 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
4416 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
4417 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
4418 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
4419 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
4420 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
4421 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
4422 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
4423 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
4424 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
4425 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
4426 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
4427 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
4428 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
4429 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
4430 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
4432 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
4434 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
4436 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
4437 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
4439 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
4441 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
4443 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
4445 Use scm_string_hash instead.
4447 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
4449 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
4451 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
4453 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
4455 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
4458 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
4459 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
4461 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
4463 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
4465 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
4467 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
4469 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
4471 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
4473 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
4475 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
4478 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
4480 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
4482 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
4484 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
4485 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
4487 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
4488 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
4490 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
4492 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
4493 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
4494 scm_module_define, scm_define.
4496 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
4498 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
4500 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
4501 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
4503 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
4504 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
4505 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
4506 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
4508 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
4509 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
4510 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
4512 Use the new ones from above instead.
4514 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
4516 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
4517 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
4518 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
4520 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
4521 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
4523 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
4524 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
4527 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
4528 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
4530 Use the new functions instead.
4532 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
4535 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
4537 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
4539 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
4542 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
4544 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
4547 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
4549 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
4552 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
4553 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
4554 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
4556 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
4558 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
4559 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
4561 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
4562 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
4563 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
4564 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
4567 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
4569 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
4570 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
4571 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
4572 inexact for an exact.
4574 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
4575 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
4576 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
4579 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
4580 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
4581 accept an inexact argument.
4583 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
4584 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
4586 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
4589 ** New number validation macros:
4590 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
4594 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
4596 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
4597 scm_unprotect_object.
4599 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
4601 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
4603 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
4606 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
4608 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
4612 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
4614 * Changes to the distribution
4616 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
4618 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
4619 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
4620 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
4621 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
4622 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
4623 obtain these programs.
4624 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
4625 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
4627 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
4628 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
4629 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
4630 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
4631 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
4633 However, this approach means that minor differences between
4634 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
4635 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
4636 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
4640 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
4643 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
4644 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
4645 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
4646 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
4648 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
4650 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
4652 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
4653 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
4655 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
4656 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
4658 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
4659 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
4661 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
4662 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
4663 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
4664 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
4666 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
4668 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
4672 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
4673 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
4675 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
4677 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
4678 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
4680 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
4681 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
4682 number of objects of that kind.
4684 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
4686 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
4687 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
4688 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
4689 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
4690 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
4692 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
4694 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
4696 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
4698 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
4701 ** New module (ice-9 time)
4703 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
4705 ** New module (ice-9 history)
4707 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
4709 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4711 ** New command line option --debug
4713 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
4715 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
4717 ** New help facility
4719 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
4720 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
4721 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
4722 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
4723 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
4724 (help) gives this text
4726 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
4727 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
4729 Examples: (help help)
4731 (help "output-string")
4733 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
4735 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
4737 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
4738 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
4741 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
4742 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
4743 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
4746 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
4747 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
4748 use absolute filenames when possible.
4750 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
4751 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
4752 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
4755 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
4757 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
4758 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
4759 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
4760 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
4762 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
4764 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
4766 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
4767 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
4768 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
4770 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
4771 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
4772 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
4774 (read-enable 'positions)
4775 (debug-enable 'debug)
4777 ** Backtraces in scripts
4779 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
4783 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
4785 at the top of the script.
4787 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
4788 The second enables backtraces.)
4790 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
4792 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
4793 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
4794 substantially faster than before.
4796 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
4797 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
4799 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
4800 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
4802 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
4804 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
4805 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
4806 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
4808 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
4809 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
4810 when this hook is run in the future.
4812 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
4813 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
4815 ** Improvements to garbage collector
4817 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
4818 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
4821 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
4822 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
4823 more and more memory for certain programs.)
4825 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
4826 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
4828 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
4829 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
4831 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
4832 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
4833 in order not to need further allocation.)
4835 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
4838 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
4839 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
4840 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
4841 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
4843 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
4845 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
4848 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
4850 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
4853 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
4854 GC in percent of total heap size
4857 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
4858 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
4860 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
4862 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
4863 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
4865 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
4867 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
4868 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
4870 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
4872 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
4873 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
4877 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
4878 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
4880 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
4882 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4884 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
4886 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
4888 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
4890 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
4891 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
4893 (simple-format port message . args)
4894 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
4895 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
4896 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
4897 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
4898 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
4899 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
4900 Does not add a trailing newline."
4902 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
4904 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
4905 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
4907 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
4908 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
4910 ** Deprecated: list*
4912 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
4914 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
4916 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
4917 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
4919 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
4920 is returned as result.
4922 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
4924 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
4926 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
4928 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
4929 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
4932 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
4934 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
4936 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
4937 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
4939 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4941 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
4943 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
4945 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4947 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
4949 Thanks to Greg Badros!
4951 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
4953 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
4954 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
4955 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
4957 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
4960 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
4962 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
4963 the readability of argument checking.
4965 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
4967 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
4969 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
4971 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
4972 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
4973 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
4974 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
4975 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
4976 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
4977 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
4979 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
4981 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
4983 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
4984 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
4986 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
4988 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
4989 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
4992 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
4994 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
4995 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
4996 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
4998 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
4999 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
5000 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
5002 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
5003 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
5004 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
5005 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
5006 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
5007 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
5008 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
5010 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
5011 scm_end_input (object);
5012 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
5013 ptob->flush (object);
5015 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
5016 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
5019 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
5021 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
5023 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
5024 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
5025 removed in a future version.
5027 ** The format of error message strings has changed
5029 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
5030 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
5031 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
5032 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
5034 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
5035 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
5037 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
5040 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
5042 in your configure.in.
5044 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
5049 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
5055 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
5057 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
5061 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
5062 (define make-message string-append)
5064 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
5066 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
5070 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
5075 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
5079 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
5081 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
5082 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
5084 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
5086 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
5087 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
5088 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
5089 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
5090 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
5091 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
5093 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
5094 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
5095 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
5097 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
5098 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
5099 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
5102 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
5103 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
5104 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
5105 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
5106 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
5108 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
5109 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
5110 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
5111 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
5112 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
5113 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
5114 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
5116 Destructors are not yet implemented.
5118 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
5119 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
5120 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
5122 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
5123 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
5124 KEY in the calling thread.
5126 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
5127 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
5128 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
5129 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
5130 associated with the key.
5132 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
5134 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
5135 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
5137 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
5139 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
5140 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
5141 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
5143 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
5145 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
5146 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
5148 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
5150 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
5152 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
5153 returned is undefined.
5155 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
5156 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
5157 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
5159 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
5160 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
5161 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
5163 ** New C level GC hooks
5165 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
5167 scm_before_gc_c_hook
5170 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
5171 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
5172 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
5174 scm_before_mark_c_hook
5175 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
5176 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
5178 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
5179 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
5182 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
5184 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
5185 allocation parameters
5187 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
5188 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
5189 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
5193 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
5194 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
5195 scm_default_max_segment_size
5197 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
5199 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
5200 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
5202 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
5204 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
5205 object and count on the object being protected until
5206 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
5208 The functions also have better time complexity.
5210 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
5211 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
5212 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
5213 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
5214 are no longer needed.
5216 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
5218 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
5219 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
5220 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
5221 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
5223 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
5225 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
5227 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
5229 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
5230 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
5231 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
5232 until this issue has been settled.
5234 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
5236 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
5238 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
5241 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
5243 * Changes to system call interfaces:
5245 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
5246 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
5247 descriptors were checked.
5249 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
5250 atomically written to a pipe.
5252 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
5253 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
5254 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
5255 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
5256 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
5257 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
5258 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
5261 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
5262 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
5263 is changed without calling tzset.
5265 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
5267 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
5268 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
5269 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
5271 (define write-network-long
5272 (lambda (value port)
5273 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
5274 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
5275 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
5277 (define read-network-long
5279 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
5280 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
5281 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
5283 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
5284 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
5286 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
5287 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
5288 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
5289 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
5291 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
5292 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
5293 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
5294 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
5298 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
5300 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5304 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
5305 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
5306 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
5312 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
5313 for a description of available commands.
5315 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
5316 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
5317 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
5319 (debug-enable 'backwards)
5321 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
5322 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
5324 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
5326 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
5328 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
5329 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
5330 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
5331 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
5332 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
5333 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
5336 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
5338 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
5339 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
5340 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
5341 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
5343 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
5344 the file and should not be affected by this change.
5346 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
5348 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5350 ** Readline support has changed again.
5352 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
5353 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
5354 to activate readline is now
5356 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
5359 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
5361 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
5362 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
5363 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
5366 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
5367 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
5368 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
5371 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
5372 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
5373 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
5374 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
5375 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
5376 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
5378 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
5379 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
5381 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
5383 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
5384 object it receives is the same string passed to
5385 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
5386 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
5387 string, not the suffix.
5389 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
5390 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
5391 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
5393 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
5395 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
5396 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
5397 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
5398 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
5401 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
5403 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
5405 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
5406 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
5407 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
5408 appear from left to right.
5410 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
5413 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
5415 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
5416 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
5418 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
5422 *** New function: hook? OBJ
5424 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
5426 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
5428 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
5429 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
5430 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
5432 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
5434 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
5436 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
5438 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
5441 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
5443 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
5444 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
5445 mentioning it here anyway.
5447 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
5449 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
5450 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
5451 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
5452 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
5455 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
5457 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
5459 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
5461 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
5462 otherwise return #f.
5464 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
5466 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
5467 returned by `opendir'.
5469 ** New function: using-readline?
5471 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
5473 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
5475 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
5476 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
5478 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5480 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
5482 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
5483 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
5484 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
5486 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
5488 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
5489 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
5491 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
5493 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
5494 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
5495 documentation slots are not yet used.
5497 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
5499 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
5500 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
5501 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
5506 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
5507 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
5508 (string-append x y))
5510 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
5511 can also be used for concatenating strings.
5513 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
5514 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
5515 be made in a clean way.]
5517 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
5519 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
5521 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
5523 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
5524 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
5526 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
5528 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
5530 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
5532 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
5534 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
5535 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
5536 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
5537 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
5540 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
5542 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
5544 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
5546 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
5548 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
5549 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
5551 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
5553 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
5555 Evaluates the body of a special form.
5557 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
5559 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
5560 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
5561 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
5562 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
5563 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
5564 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
5566 This should not make any difference for most users.
5568 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
5570 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
5571 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
5573 *** New functions for applying generic functions
5575 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
5576 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
5577 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
5578 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
5579 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
5581 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
5583 It is now replaced by:
5585 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
5587 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
5588 binds a variable named NAME to it.
5590 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
5592 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
5593 This might change when we get the new module system.
5595 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
5599 Changes since Guile 1.3:
5601 * Changes to mailing lists
5603 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
5605 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
5608 * Changes to the distribution
5610 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
5612 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
5613 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
5614 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
5615 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
5616 you explicitly specify it.
5618 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
5619 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
5620 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
5621 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
5622 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
5625 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
5626 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
5627 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
5628 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
5630 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
5631 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
5632 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
5635 You can activate the readline support by issuing
5637 (use-modules (readline-activator))
5640 from your ".guile" file, for example.
5642 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5644 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
5645 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
5646 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
5647 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
5649 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
5650 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
5653 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5655 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
5656 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
5657 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
5658 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
5659 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
5660 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
5661 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
5662 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
5674 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
5675 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
5676 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
5677 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
5678 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
5683 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
5684 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
5692 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
5697 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
5698 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
5701 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
5702 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
5703 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
5704 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
5706 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
5708 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
5710 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
5711 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
5713 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
5715 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
5717 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
5718 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
5720 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
5723 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
5725 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
5727 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
5729 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
5731 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
5733 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
5735 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
5736 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
5737 when the hook was created.
5739 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
5740 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
5741 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
5742 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
5743 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
5744 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
5745 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
5746 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
5747 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
5749 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
5750 the dlopen family of functions.
5752 ** New function `provided?'
5754 - Function: provided? FEATURE
5755 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
5756 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
5757 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
5759 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
5761 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
5762 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
5763 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
5764 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
5767 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
5768 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
5769 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
5770 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
5772 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
5773 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
5774 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
5777 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
5778 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
5779 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
5780 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
5781 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
5782 but with the flag set.
5784 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
5786 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
5787 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
5789 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
5790 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
5791 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
5792 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
5793 available Scheme format implementations.
5795 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
5796 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
5797 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
5798 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
5799 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
5800 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
5801 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
5802 output is to the current error port if available by the
5803 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
5806 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
5807 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
5808 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
5809 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
5810 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
5811 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
5812 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
5813 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
5815 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
5816 be executed at a time.
5819 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
5821 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
5822 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
5823 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
5825 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
5826 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
5827 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
5828 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
5829 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
5830 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
5831 general form of a directive is:
5833 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
5835 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
5837 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
5839 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
5840 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
5841 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
5844 Any (print as `display' does).
5848 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
5852 S-expression (print as `write' does).
5856 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
5862 print number sign always.
5865 print comma separated.
5867 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
5873 print number sign always.
5876 print comma separated.
5878 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
5884 print number sign always.
5887 print comma separated.
5889 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
5895 print number sign always.
5898 print comma separated.
5900 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
5905 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
5909 print a number as a Roman numeral.
5912 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
5915 print a number as an ordinal English number.
5918 print a number as a cardinal English number.
5923 prints `y' and `ies'.
5926 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
5929 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
5934 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
5938 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
5941 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
5942 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
5944 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
5947 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
5948 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
5950 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
5953 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
5955 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
5957 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
5960 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
5962 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
5964 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
5967 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
5970 The sign appears before the padding.
5978 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
5980 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
5985 print N page separators.
5995 newline is ignored, white space left.
5998 newline is left, white space ignored.
6003 relative tabulation.
6009 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
6011 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
6014 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
6016 converts by `string-capitalize'.
6019 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
6022 converts by `string-upcase'.
6025 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
6027 jumps N arguments forward.
6030 jumps 1 argument backward.
6033 jumps N arguments backward.
6036 jumps to the 0th argument.
6039 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
6041 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
6042 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
6044 take argument from N.
6047 true test conditional.
6050 if-else-then conditional.
6056 default clause follows.
6059 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
6061 at most N iterations.
6064 args from next arg (a list of lists).
6067 args from the rest of arguments.
6070 args from the rest args (lists).
6081 aborts if N <= M <= K
6083 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
6086 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
6089 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
6095 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
6097 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
6099 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
6100 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
6101 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
6102 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
6103 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
6104 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
6108 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
6112 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
6118 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
6121 Print a `#\space' character
6123 print N `#\space' characters.
6126 Print a `#\tab' character
6128 print N `#\tab' characters.
6131 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
6132 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
6133 must be a positive decimal number.
6136 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
6137 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
6138 be processed by `read'.
6141 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
6142 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
6143 be processed by `read'.
6146 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
6149 prints format version.
6152 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
6153 and format it accordingly.
6155 *** Configuration Variables
6157 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
6158 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
6159 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
6160 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
6163 format:symbol-case-conv
6164 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
6165 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
6166 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
6167 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
6168 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
6170 format:iobj-case-conv
6171 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
6172 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
6175 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
6178 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
6184 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
6185 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
6186 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
6187 `format' padding style.
6190 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
6191 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
6192 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
6193 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
6197 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
6198 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
6199 directive parameters or modifiers)).
6202 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
6203 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
6204 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
6205 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
6206 parameters or modifiers)).
6209 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
6211 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
6213 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
6214 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
6216 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
6217 string-downcase! functions.
6219 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
6220 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
6222 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
6225 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
6228 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
6229 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
6231 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
6233 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
6234 the symbol had be read by `read'.
6236 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
6237 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
6238 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
6239 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
6240 would if STRING were input.
6242 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
6244 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
6245 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
6246 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
6247 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
6250 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
6252 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
6253 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
6256 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
6258 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
6259 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
6261 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
6262 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
6264 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
6265 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
6266 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
6267 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
6269 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
6270 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
6272 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
6273 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
6274 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
6276 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
6277 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
6279 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
6280 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
6281 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
6282 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
6283 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
6285 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
6286 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
6287 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
6288 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
6289 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
6290 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
6292 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
6293 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
6294 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
6297 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
6298 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
6299 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
6300 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
6301 the following grammar:
6302 ((apples (single-char #\a))
6303 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
6304 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
6305 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
6306 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
6307 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
6308 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
6309 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
6310 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
6311 last option in its combination)
6313 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
6314 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
6315 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
6316 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
6318 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
6319 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
6320 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
6322 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
6323 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
6324 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
6326 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
6327 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
6328 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
6329 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
6330 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
6331 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
6332 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
6333 ordinary argument strings.
6335 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
6336 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
6337 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
6338 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
6340 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
6341 as a list, associated with the empty list.
6343 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
6344 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
6345 - a required option is omitted
6346 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
6347 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
6348 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
6349 - an option predicate fails
6354 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
6357 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
6358 (verbose (required? #f)
6361 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
6362 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
6363 (predicate ,string?))))
6365 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
6366 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
6368 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
6369 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
6370 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
6371 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
6374 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
6376 It will be removed in a few releases.
6378 ** New syntax: lambda*
6379 ** New syntax: define*
6380 ** New syntax: define*-public
6381 ** New syntax: defmacro*
6382 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
6383 Guile now supports optional arguments.
6385 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
6386 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
6387 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
6388 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
6389 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
6391 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
6392 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
6393 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
6395 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
6397 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
6398 and examples for `lambda*':
6401 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
6403 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
6404 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
6405 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
6406 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
6407 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
6408 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
6409 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
6410 can be checked with the bound? macro.
6412 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
6414 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
6415 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
6416 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
6417 are given as keywords are bound to values.
6419 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
6420 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
6421 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
6422 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
6423 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
6424 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
6425 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
6426 and until the procedure is called.
6428 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
6430 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
6431 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
6432 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
6433 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
6434 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
6435 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
6436 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
6437 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
6438 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
6439 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
6441 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
6442 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
6443 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
6444 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
6447 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
6449 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
6450 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
6451 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
6452 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
6454 ** New syntax: and-let*
6455 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
6457 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
6458 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
6459 (<variable> <expression>)
6462 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
6463 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
6464 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
6467 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
6468 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
6469 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
6470 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
6471 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
6472 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
6473 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
6475 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
6476 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
6477 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
6478 shadow earlier bindings.
6480 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
6482 ** New sorting functions
6484 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
6485 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
6486 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
6487 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
6489 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
6490 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
6493 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
6494 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
6495 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
6497 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
6498 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
6499 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
6500 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
6502 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
6503 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
6504 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
6505 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
6506 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
6509 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
6510 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
6511 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
6512 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
6513 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
6514 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
6516 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
6517 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
6518 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
6520 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
6521 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
6522 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
6525 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
6526 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
6527 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
6529 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
6530 Added for compatibility with scsh.
6532 ** New built-in random number support
6534 *** New function: random N [STATE]
6535 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
6536 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
6537 returned have a uniform distribution.
6539 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
6540 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
6541 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
6542 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
6543 effect of the `random' operation.
6545 *** New variable: *random-state*
6546 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
6547 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
6548 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
6549 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
6550 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
6553 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
6554 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
6555 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
6556 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
6557 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
6559 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
6560 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
6561 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
6562 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
6563 initialized using SEED.
6565 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
6566 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
6567 range between 0 and 1.
6569 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
6570 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
6571 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
6572 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
6573 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
6574 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
6575 or a uniform vector of doubles.
6577 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
6578 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
6579 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
6580 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
6581 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
6582 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
6584 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
6585 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
6586 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
6587 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
6589 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
6590 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
6591 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
6592 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
6594 *** New function: random:exp STATE
6595 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
6596 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
6598 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
6600 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
6603 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
6604 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
6607 ** New function: make-guardian
6608 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
6609 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
6610 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
6611 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
6612 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
6614 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
6615 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
6616 one object if at all.
6618 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
6619 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
6620 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
6622 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
6623 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
6624 read again in last-in first-out order.
6626 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
6627 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
6629 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
6631 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
6632 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
6633 file position is used.
6635 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
6636 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
6637 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
6639 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
6640 redefined using seek.
6642 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
6643 size is not supplied.
6645 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
6646 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
6648 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
6649 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
6651 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
6653 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
6654 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
6655 and returns the contents as a single string.
6657 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
6658 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
6659 lists in serial order.
6661 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
6662 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
6663 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
6665 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
6666 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
6667 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
6668 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
6670 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
6671 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
6672 and #f if an error occured.
6674 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
6676 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
6677 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
6678 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
6679 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
6681 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
6683 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
6686 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
6688 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
6691 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6695 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
6696 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
6698 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
6699 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
6703 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6705 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
6707 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
6708 binds a variable named NAME to it.
6710 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
6712 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
6713 might change when we get the new module system.
6715 ** The smob interface
6717 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
6718 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
6720 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
6722 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
6726 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
6727 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
6728 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
6729 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
6730 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
6731 will be freed by the default free function.
6733 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
6734 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
6735 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
6736 `scm_make_smob_type'.
6738 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
6739 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
6740 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
6741 `scm_make_smob_type'.
6743 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
6745 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
6746 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
6750 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
6751 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
6752 `scm_make_smob_type'.
6754 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
6755 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
6756 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
6757 `scm_make_smob_type'.
6759 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
6760 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
6761 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
6763 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
6764 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
6765 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
6766 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
6768 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
6769 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
6770 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
6772 *** scm_newptob has been removed
6776 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
6778 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
6779 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
6780 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
6782 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
6783 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
6784 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
6786 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
6787 a string port's buffer.
6789 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
6790 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
6791 function pointers which together define the current random number
6792 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
6793 number library functions.
6795 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
6798 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
6799 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
6802 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
6803 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
6805 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
6806 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
6808 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
6809 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
6812 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
6813 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
6814 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
6815 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
6817 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
6818 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
6819 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
6820 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
6821 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
6822 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
6823 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
6825 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
6826 by libguile and the application.
6828 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
6829 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
6830 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
6831 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
6833 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
6834 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
6836 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
6837 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
6838 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
6840 ** Random number library functions
6841 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
6842 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
6843 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
6845 The default random state is stored in:
6847 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
6848 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
6849 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
6854 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
6856 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
6857 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
6858 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
6859 isn't a random state.
6861 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
6862 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
6864 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
6865 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
6866 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
6867 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
6869 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
6870 Return 32 random bits.
6872 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
6873 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
6875 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
6876 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
6878 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
6879 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
6881 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
6882 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
6884 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
6885 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
6886 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
6890 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
6892 * Changes to the distribution
6894 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
6895 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
6896 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
6899 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
6900 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
6901 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
6903 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
6904 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
6905 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
6906 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
6909 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
6910 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
6911 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
6913 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
6915 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
6917 *** Function: batch-mode?
6919 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
6922 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
6924 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
6925 case has not been implemented.
6927 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
6928 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
6929 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
6932 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
6933 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
6935 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
6937 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
6939 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
6941 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
6942 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
6945 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
6946 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
6947 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
6948 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
6951 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
6953 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
6954 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
6955 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
6956 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
6957 find those libraries.
6959 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
6960 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
6963 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
6965 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
6966 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
6967 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
6968 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
6970 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
6971 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
6972 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
6976 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
6978 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
6979 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
6980 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
6983 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
6984 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
6985 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
6986 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
6988 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
6989 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
6992 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
6993 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
6994 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
6995 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
6996 compiler where to find the libraries.
6998 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
6999 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
7000 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
7002 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
7003 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
7004 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
7005 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
7006 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
7010 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
7012 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
7013 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
7014 internationalization support.
7016 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
7017 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
7018 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
7019 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
7020 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
7022 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
7023 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
7024 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
7025 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
7026 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
7028 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
7029 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
7030 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
7031 any GNU mirror site.
7033 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
7035 ** New function: add-history STRING
7036 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
7037 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
7038 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
7040 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
7042 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
7043 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
7044 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
7047 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
7048 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
7049 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
7051 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
7053 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
7056 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
7057 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
7060 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
7061 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
7062 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
7063 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
7064 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
7065 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
7067 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
7068 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
7069 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
7070 of the form mentioned above.
7072 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
7073 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
7074 returned in the special `rest' list.
7076 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
7077 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
7079 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
7081 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
7083 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
7085 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
7086 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
7087 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
7088 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
7089 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
7090 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
7091 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
7092 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
7095 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
7097 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
7099 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
7100 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
7103 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
7104 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
7105 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
7109 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
7110 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
7111 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
7112 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
7113 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
7114 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
7115 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
7116 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
7119 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
7121 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
7122 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
7123 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
7125 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
7127 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
7128 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
7130 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
7131 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
7132 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
7134 Why do we have this function?
7135 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
7136 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
7137 primitive, and display it differently, and
7138 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
7139 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
7142 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
7143 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
7146 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
7147 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
7148 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
7149 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
7151 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
7152 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
7155 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
7156 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
7158 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
7160 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
7161 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
7162 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
7163 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
7164 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
7165 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
7166 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
7169 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
7171 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
7172 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
7174 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
7175 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
7176 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
7177 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
7178 properly continue the print chain.
7180 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
7181 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
7182 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
7183 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
7184 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
7185 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
7186 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
7187 print-state, it is simply ignored.
7189 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
7190 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
7191 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
7192 safest to not check for these pairs.
7194 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
7195 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
7196 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
7197 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
7199 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
7201 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
7202 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
7204 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
7206 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
7208 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
7209 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
7210 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
7212 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
7213 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
7214 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
7216 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
7217 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
7218 the following functions and macros:
7220 Function: make-fluid
7222 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
7223 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
7224 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
7225 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
7226 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
7228 Function: fluid? OBJ
7230 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
7232 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
7233 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
7235 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
7236 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
7238 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
7240 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
7241 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
7242 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
7243 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
7244 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
7245 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
7246 modified by `with-fluids*'.
7248 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
7250 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
7251 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
7252 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
7253 should evaluate to a fluid.
7255 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
7257 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
7258 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
7259 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
7260 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
7261 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
7263 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
7266 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
7268 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
7270 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
7272 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
7275 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
7276 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
7277 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
7278 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
7279 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
7282 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
7283 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
7284 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
7286 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
7287 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
7288 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
7290 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
7291 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
7292 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
7293 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
7295 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
7296 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
7297 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
7298 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
7300 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
7301 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
7302 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
7303 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
7305 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
7306 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
7307 their revealed counts set to zero.
7309 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
7310 Returns an integer file descriptor.
7312 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
7313 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
7315 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
7316 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
7318 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
7319 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
7320 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
7322 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
7323 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
7324 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
7326 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
7327 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
7328 default environment inherited by child processes.
7330 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
7331 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
7332 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
7334 The return value is unspecified.
7336 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
7337 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
7338 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
7339 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
7340 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
7342 The return value is unspecified.
7344 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
7345 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
7353 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
7354 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
7357 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
7360 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
7361 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
7362 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
7364 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
7365 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
7366 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
7367 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
7370 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
7371 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
7373 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
7374 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
7375 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
7376 the `environ' procedure.
7378 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
7379 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
7382 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
7383 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
7385 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
7386 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
7387 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
7388 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
7390 *** procedure: times
7391 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
7392 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
7393 return a selected component:
7396 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
7400 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
7403 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
7407 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
7408 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
7412 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
7413 terminated child processes.
7415 ** Removed: list-length
7416 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
7417 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
7419 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
7421 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
7423 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
7425 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
7426 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
7427 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
7428 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
7430 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
7431 extra complexity it introduces.
7433 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
7434 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
7436 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
7437 variable to any non-empty value.
7439 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
7440 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
7442 * Changes to the gh_ interface
7444 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
7445 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
7447 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
7449 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
7450 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
7452 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
7454 ** vector handling routines
7456 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
7457 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
7458 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
7459 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
7460 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
7462 ** pair and list routines
7464 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
7467 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
7469 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
7472 * Changes to the scm_ interface
7474 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
7476 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
7477 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
7478 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
7479 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
7480 site-specific initialization code.
7482 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
7483 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
7484 initialization processes.
7486 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
7487 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
7488 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
7489 initialized properly.
7491 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
7492 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
7493 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
7495 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
7496 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
7497 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
7498 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
7499 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
7501 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
7503 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
7504 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
7505 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
7506 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
7507 objects the smob refers to get marked.
7509 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
7510 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
7511 which look like this:
7514 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
7516 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
7517 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
7520 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
7521 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
7524 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
7526 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
7527 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
7528 you will need to change your functions slightly.
7530 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
7531 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
7532 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
7533 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
7534 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
7536 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
7537 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
7539 int (*free) (SCM port);
7540 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
7541 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
7542 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
7546 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
7547 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
7548 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
7550 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
7553 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
7554 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
7555 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
7557 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
7558 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
7559 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
7562 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
7566 struct timeval *timeout);
7568 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
7569 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
7570 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
7571 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
7572 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
7573 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
7575 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
7576 scm_catch_body_t body,
7578 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
7581 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
7582 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
7583 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
7584 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
7585 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
7586 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
7588 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
7590 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
7593 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
7594 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
7595 spawning threads from application C code.
7597 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
7598 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
7599 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
7600 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
7601 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
7602 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
7604 ** Removed functions:
7606 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
7607 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
7609 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
7611 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
7612 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
7614 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
7616 ** mbstrings are now removed
7618 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
7619 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
7621 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
7623 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
7624 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
7625 their new names and arguments:
7627 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
7628 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
7629 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
7630 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
7633 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
7635 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
7637 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
7640 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
7642 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
7643 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
7644 pass a #f arg to catch.
7646 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
7648 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
7649 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
7652 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
7653 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
7654 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
7655 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
7656 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
7657 reclaim its storage.
7659 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
7660 worrying that some other function you call will call
7661 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
7662 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
7663 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
7664 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
7667 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
7669 * Changes to the distribution
7671 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
7672 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
7675 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
7676 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
7678 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
7679 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
7681 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
7683 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
7684 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
7685 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
7687 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
7689 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
7690 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
7691 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
7692 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
7693 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
7694 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
7696 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
7697 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
7698 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
7701 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
7702 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
7703 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
7704 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
7706 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
7707 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
7708 libraries to your link command:
7710 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
7711 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
7712 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
7713 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
7715 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
7716 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
7717 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
7719 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
7721 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
7722 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
7725 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
7727 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
7728 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
7729 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
7730 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
7731 searched is system dependent.
7733 (dynamic-object? VAL)
7735 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
7737 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
7739 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
7740 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
7742 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
7744 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
7745 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
7746 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
7747 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
7748 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
7751 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
7753 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
7754 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
7755 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
7756 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
7757 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
7759 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
7761 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
7762 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
7764 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
7766 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
7767 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
7768 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
7771 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
7773 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
7774 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
7775 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
7776 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
7778 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
7779 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
7781 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
7783 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
7784 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
7786 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
7788 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
7789 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
7797 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
7799 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
7800 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
7801 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
7802 a more informative way.
7804 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
7805 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
7806 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
7807 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
7808 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
7809 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
7811 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
7812 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
7815 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
7816 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
7817 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
7820 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
7821 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
7822 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
7823 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
7824 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
7825 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
7827 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
7828 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
7829 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
7830 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
7833 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
7834 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
7835 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
7836 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
7837 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
7838 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
7840 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
7841 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
7842 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
7843 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
7844 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
7846 *** regexp functions
7848 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
7849 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
7850 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
7852 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
7853 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
7854 with SCSH regular expressions.
7856 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
7857 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
7858 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
7859 position of STR at which to begin matching.
7861 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
7862 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
7863 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
7864 `string-match' returns `#f'.
7866 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
7867 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
7868 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
7869 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
7870 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
7871 match strings against the compiled regexp.
7873 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
7874 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
7875 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
7876 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
7877 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
7879 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
7881 **** Constant: regexp/extended
7882 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
7883 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
7884 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
7886 **** Constant: regexp/icase
7887 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
7888 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
7890 **** Constant: regexp/newline
7891 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
7893 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
7896 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
7897 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
7898 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
7900 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
7901 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
7902 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
7904 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
7905 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
7906 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
7907 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
7908 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
7911 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
7913 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
7914 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
7915 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
7916 used when different portions of a string are passed to
7917 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
7918 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
7920 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
7921 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
7922 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
7924 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
7925 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
7928 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
7929 and replace them with the contents of another string.
7931 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
7932 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
7933 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
7934 may be one of the following arguments:
7936 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
7938 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
7940 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
7941 the regexp match is written.
7943 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
7944 following the regexp match is written.
7946 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
7947 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
7950 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
7951 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
7952 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
7953 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
7954 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
7955 which should be matched against this regular expression.
7957 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
7960 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
7961 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
7962 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
7963 written out to PORT.
7965 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
7966 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
7967 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
7968 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
7969 will return after processing a single match.
7971 *** Match Structures
7973 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
7974 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
7975 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
7976 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
7977 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
7978 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
7981 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
7982 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
7983 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
7984 information about the original target string that was matched against a
7985 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
7987 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
7988 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
7989 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
7991 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
7992 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
7993 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
7994 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
7995 number N did not match, return `#f'.
7997 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
7998 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
8000 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
8001 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
8003 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
8004 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
8006 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
8007 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
8009 **** Function: match:count MATCH
8010 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
8011 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
8012 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
8014 **** Function: match:string MATCH
8015 Return the original TARGET string.
8017 *** Backslash Escapes
8019 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
8020 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
8021 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
8022 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
8023 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
8024 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
8026 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
8027 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
8028 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
8029 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
8030 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
8031 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
8032 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
8033 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
8035 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
8036 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
8037 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
8038 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
8039 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
8040 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
8041 each match a single backslash in the target string.
8043 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
8044 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
8045 return the resulting string.
8047 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
8048 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
8049 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
8050 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
8051 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
8052 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
8053 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
8054 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
8055 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
8056 translated to the single character `*'.
8058 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
8059 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
8060 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
8061 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
8062 consecutive backslashes:
8064 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
8066 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
8067 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
8068 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
8070 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
8071 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
8072 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
8073 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
8074 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
8075 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
8077 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
8079 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
8080 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
8081 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
8082 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
8083 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
8084 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
8085 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
8086 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
8087 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
8088 cumbersome escape syntax.
8090 * Changes to the gh_ interface
8092 * Changes to the scm_ interface
8094 * Changes to system call interfaces:
8096 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
8099 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
8101 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
8103 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
8106 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
8107 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
8108 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
8109 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
8110 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
8112 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
8113 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
8114 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
8115 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
8116 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
8117 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
8118 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
8121 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
8122 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
8123 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
8126 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
8127 `force-output' on every port open for output.
8129 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
8130 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
8131 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
8132 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
8133 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
8134 installed, you can say:
8136 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
8139 * Changes to the scm_ interface
8141 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
8142 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
8143 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
8144 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
8145 new dynamic roots and threads.
8148 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
8150 * Changes to the distribution.
8152 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
8154 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
8155 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
8156 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
8157 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
8158 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
8159 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
8160 programming language. These are packaged together because the
8161 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
8163 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
8166 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
8167 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
8172 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
8174 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
8175 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
8177 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
8178 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
8179 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
8180 the (command-line) function.
8181 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
8182 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
8183 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
8185 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
8186 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
8187 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
8188 command line arguments
8189 -ds do -s script at this point
8190 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
8191 -h, --help display this help and exit
8192 -v, --version display version information and exit
8193 \ read arguments from following script lines
8195 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
8196 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
8198 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
8201 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
8205 (main (command-line))
8207 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
8209 ekko a speckled gecko
8211 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
8212 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
8213 following list of command-line arguments:
8215 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
8217 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
8218 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
8219 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
8220 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
8221 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
8223 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
8225 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
8227 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
8228 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
8231 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
8232 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
8233 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
8234 SCSH) for circumventing them.
8236 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
8237 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
8238 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
8239 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
8241 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
8245 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
8249 If the user invokes this script as follows:
8251 ekko a speckled gecko
8253 Unix expands this into
8255 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
8257 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
8258 read from the second line of the script, producing:
8260 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
8262 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
8263 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
8265 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
8266 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
8267 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
8268 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
8269 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
8270 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
8271 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
8272 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
8273 it only terminates the argument list.)
8274 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
8275 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
8276 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
8277 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
8278 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
8279 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
8280 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
8281 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
8283 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
8285 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
8286 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
8287 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
8288 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
8289 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
8291 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
8292 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
8293 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
8295 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
8297 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
8298 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
8299 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
8300 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
8303 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
8304 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
8305 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
8307 * Changes to Scheme functions
8309 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
8310 and disabled by default.
8312 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
8313 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
8314 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
8315 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
8317 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
8319 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
8321 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
8322 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
8324 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
8325 (read-set! keywords #f)
8327 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
8328 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
8329 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
8332 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
8333 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
8334 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
8337 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
8338 support for Scheme functions.
8340 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
8341 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
8342 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
8343 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
8346 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
8347 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
8348 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
8351 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
8352 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
8353 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
8356 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
8357 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
8358 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
8359 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
8360 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
8361 display the result as a prompt.
8362 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
8364 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
8365 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
8366 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
8369 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
8370 procedure of zero arguments.
8372 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
8373 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
8374 argument is bound in the current module.
8376 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
8377 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
8378 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
8379 public bindings into the current module.
8381 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
8382 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
8384 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
8385 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
8387 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
8388 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
8390 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
8391 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
8393 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
8394 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
8396 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
8397 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
8398 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
8399 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
8400 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
8402 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
8403 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
8404 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
8405 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
8407 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
8410 ** Changes to I/O functions
8412 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
8413 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
8414 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
8416 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
8417 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
8418 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
8420 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
8421 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
8423 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
8424 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
8425 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
8426 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
8428 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
8430 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
8431 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
8433 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
8434 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
8435 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
8436 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
8437 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
8440 'trim omit delimiter from result
8441 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
8442 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
8443 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
8445 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
8447 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
8448 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
8450 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
8451 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
8452 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
8453 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
8454 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
8456 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
8457 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
8458 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
8460 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
8461 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
8462 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
8463 above, and defaults to 'peek.
8465 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
8466 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
8468 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
8469 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
8471 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
8473 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
8474 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
8475 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
8476 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
8477 a delimiting character.
8478 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
8480 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
8481 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
8482 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
8483 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
8484 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
8485 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
8487 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
8488 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
8490 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
8491 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
8492 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
8494 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
8495 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
8496 the array to read and write.
8498 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
8499 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
8502 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
8504 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
8507 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
8508 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
8509 Values for COMMAND are:
8511 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
8512 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
8513 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
8514 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
8515 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
8516 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
8517 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
8518 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
8520 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
8522 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
8523 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
8524 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
8525 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
8526 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
8527 corresponding return set will be the same.
8529 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
8532 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
8533 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
8534 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
8535 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
8536 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
8537 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
8538 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
8539 special file being created.
8541 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
8542 clashing with various SCSH forks.
8544 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
8545 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
8546 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
8547 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
8548 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
8549 and originating address.
8551 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
8552 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
8553 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
8555 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
8558 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
8559 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
8562 (status:exit-val STATUS)
8563 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
8564 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
8565 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
8566 this function returns #f.
8568 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
8569 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
8570 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
8573 (status:term-sig STATUS)
8574 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
8575 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
8578 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
8579 a valid STATUS value.
8581 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
8583 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
8584 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
8586 Component Accessor Setter
8587 ========================= ============ ============
8588 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
8589 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
8590 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
8591 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
8592 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
8593 year tm:year set-tm:year
8594 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
8595 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
8596 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
8597 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
8598 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
8600 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
8601 describing the host system:
8604 ============================================== ================
8605 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
8606 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
8607 release level of the operating system utsname:release
8608 version level of the operating system utsname:version
8609 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
8611 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
8612 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
8613 system's user database:
8616 ====================== =================
8617 user name passwd:name
8618 user password passwd:passwd
8621 real name passwd:gecos
8622 home directory passwd:dir
8623 shell program passwd:shell
8625 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
8626 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
8627 system's group database:
8630 ======================= ============
8631 group name group:name
8632 group password group:passwd
8634 group members group:mem
8636 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
8637 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
8641 ========================= ===============
8642 official name of host hostent:name
8643 alias list hostent:aliases
8644 host address type hostent:addrtype
8645 length of address hostent:length
8646 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
8648 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
8649 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
8653 ========================= ===============
8654 official name of net netent:name
8655 alias list netent:aliases
8656 net number type netent:addrtype
8657 net number netent:net
8659 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
8660 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
8664 ========================= ===============
8665 official protocol name protoent:name
8666 alias list protoent:aliases
8667 protocol number protoent:proto
8669 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
8670 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
8674 ========================= ===============
8675 official service name servent:name
8676 alias list servent:aliases
8677 port number servent:port
8678 protocol to use servent:proto
8680 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
8681 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
8684 ======================================== ===============
8685 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
8686 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
8687 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
8688 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
8690 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
8691 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
8692 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
8694 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
8695 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
8697 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
8698 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
8700 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
8701 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
8703 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
8705 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
8707 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
8708 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
8709 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
8711 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
8712 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
8713 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
8714 return the remaining characters as a string.
8716 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
8717 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
8718 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
8720 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
8722 * Changes to the gh_ interface
8724 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
8727 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
8730 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
8731 and returns the array
8733 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
8734 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
8735 the user to interpret the data both ways.
8737 * Changes to the scm_ interface
8739 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
8740 symbol's value from C code:
8742 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
8743 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
8744 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
8745 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
8747 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
8748 without assigning them a value.
8750 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
8751 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
8752 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
8754 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
8755 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
8756 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
8758 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
8759 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
8761 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
8762 doesn't actually care about that.
8764 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
8765 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
8766 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
8768 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
8769 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
8770 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
8771 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
8772 which we have just created and initialized.
8774 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
8775 should one occur. We call it like this:
8776 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
8778 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
8779 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
8780 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
8781 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
8782 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
8783 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
8786 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
8787 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
8788 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
8789 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
8790 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
8791 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
8792 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
8795 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
8796 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
8797 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
8798 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
8799 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
8802 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
8803 scm_internal_catch, except:
8805 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
8806 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
8807 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
8808 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
8811 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
8812 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
8813 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
8815 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
8816 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
8817 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
8818 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
8821 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
8822 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
8823 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
8825 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
8826 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
8827 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
8828 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
8829 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
8831 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
8832 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
8833 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
8835 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
8836 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
8837 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
8839 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
8840 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
8842 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
8843 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
8844 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
8847 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
8848 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
8849 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
8850 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
8851 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
8852 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
8853 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
8856 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
8857 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
8859 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
8860 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
8861 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
8862 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
8863 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
8866 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
8867 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
8869 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
8870 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
8873 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
8874 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
8876 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
8879 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
8880 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
8881 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
8882 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
8883 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
8884 given the following arguments:
8886 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
8888 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
8890 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
8892 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
8895 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
8896 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
8897 command-line arguments.
8899 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
8900 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
8901 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
8902 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
8903 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
8904 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
8907 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
8910 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
8911 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
8913 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
8914 rearranged slightly. They are now:
8916 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
8917 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
8918 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
8919 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
8921 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
8922 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
8924 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
8925 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
8926 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
8927 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
8929 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
8930 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
8932 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
8933 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
8935 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
8937 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
8938 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
8939 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
8942 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
8943 returns a port instead of an FD object.
8945 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
8946 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
8951 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
8954 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
8956 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
8957 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
8958 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
8959 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
8961 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
8963 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
8965 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
8966 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
8967 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
8968 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
8969 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
8970 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
8971 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
8972 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
8973 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
8974 for more information.
8976 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
8977 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
8979 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
8980 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
8981 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
8982 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
8983 following two lines at the top of the file:
8985 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
8988 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
8989 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
8990 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
8992 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
8994 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
8996 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
8999 (display (car args))
9000 (if (pair? (cdr args))
9002 (loop (cdr args)))))
9005 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
9006 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
9007 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
9008 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
9009 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
9010 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
9014 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
9017 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
9020 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
9022 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
9023 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
9024 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
9025 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
9026 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
9029 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
9030 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
9031 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
9032 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
9033 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
9036 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
9039 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
9040 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
9041 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
9044 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
9045 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
9046 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
9048 to see a backtrace, and
9049 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
9050 to see them by default.
9054 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
9056 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
9058 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
9059 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
9062 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
9063 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
9064 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
9065 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
9068 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
9069 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
9070 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
9071 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
9072 functions which inspired them.
9074 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
9075 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
9079 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
9081 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
9083 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
9084 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
9087 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
9088 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
9089 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
9091 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
9092 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
9093 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
9094 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
9095 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
9097 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
9099 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
9100 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
9101 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
9104 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
9107 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
9109 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
9110 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
9111 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
9112 above should serve their purposes.
9114 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
9115 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
9116 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
9117 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
9119 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
9122 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
9123 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
9124 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
9125 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
9127 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
9128 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
9129 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
9130 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
9132 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
9133 for the `read' function.
9136 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
9137 to that of `integer?'.
9139 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
9140 use the R4RS names for these functions.
9142 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
9143 it simply returns the object's property list.
9145 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
9146 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
9147 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
9148 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
9150 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
9152 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
9155 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
9157 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
9158 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
9160 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
9162 void (*main_func) (),
9165 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
9166 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
9167 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
9168 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
9169 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
9171 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
9172 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
9173 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
9174 know which arguments have been processed.
9176 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
9177 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
9178 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
9179 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
9180 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
9182 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
9183 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
9184 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
9185 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
9186 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
9187 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
9188 people from making that mistake.
9190 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
9191 convenient ways to override these when desired.
9193 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
9195 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
9199 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
9202 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
9203 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
9204 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
9205 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
9208 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
9209 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
9210 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
9211 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
9214 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
9215 have been added to the Guile library.
9217 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
9218 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
9219 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
9222 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
9223 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
9224 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
9226 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
9227 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
9228 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
9229 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
9230 argument from the list.
9233 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
9236 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
9237 null-terminated string, and returns it.
9239 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
9240 to a Scheme port object.
9242 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
9243 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
9248 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
9250 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
9251 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
9252 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
9253 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
9254 code as a special datatype.
9256 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
9257 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
9258 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
9259 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
9260 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
9263 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
9264 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
9265 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
9266 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
9267 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
9269 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
9272 Copyright information:
9274 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
9276 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
9277 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
9278 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
9279 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
9281 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
9282 of this document, or of portions of it,
9283 under the above conditions, provided also that they
9284 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
9289 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"