1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes. -*- text -*-
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
7 Changes since the stable branch:
9 * Changes to the distribution
11 ** There are two new thread implementation options: "null" and
14 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
15 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
16 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
17 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
18 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
21 When "coop" threading is not supported on your platform, you will get
22 the "null" threads instead.
24 The "coop-pthread" (or shorter: "copt") thread implementation will use
25 portable POSIX threads but will restrict them so that only one thread
26 can execute 'in Guile' at any one time. This option will give you the
27 same basic behavior as the "coop" option, but hopefully in a more
30 ** Guile now includes its own version of libltdl.
32 We now use a modified version of libltdl that allows us to make
33 improvements to it without having to rely on libtool releases.
35 * Changes to the standalone interpreter
37 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
39 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
40 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
42 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
44 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
45 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
47 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
49 ** Mutexes are now recursive.
51 Locking a mutex that you have already locked will now succeed. Every
52 call to lock-mutex must be matched with a call to unlock-mutex. Only
53 the last call to unlock-mutex will actually unlock the mutex.
55 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
57 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
58 instead if blocking and indicate failure.
60 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
62 The funtion 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
63 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
66 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
68 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
70 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
72 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
73 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
74 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
77 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
78 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
79 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
82 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
83 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
85 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
87 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
88 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
91 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
92 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
94 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
95 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
96 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
97 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
98 level for the current thread.
100 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
102 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
104 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
105 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
108 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
110 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
112 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
115 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
117 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
120 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
121 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
122 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
124 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
125 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
126 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
127 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
138 ERROR: Numerical overflow
140 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
143 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
145 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
146 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
147 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
158 ** We now have uninterned symbols.
160 The new function 'make-symbol' will return a uninterned symbol. This
161 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
162 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
164 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
167 ** pretty-print has more options.
169 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
170 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
171 maximum output width. See its online documentation.
173 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
175 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
176 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
177 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
179 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
181 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
182 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
184 ** Removed: substring-move-left!, substring-move-right!
186 Use `substring-move!' instead.
188 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
190 Change your code to use either procedure->memoizing-macro or, probably better,
191 to use r5rs macros. Also, be aware that macro expansion will not be done
192 during evaluation, but prior to evaluation.
194 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
196 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
197 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
198 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
199 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
200 without the soft port blocking.
202 ** New debugging feature: breakpoints.
204 Guile now has breakpoints. For details see the `Debugging Features'
205 chapter in the reference manual.
207 ** Deprecated: undefine
209 There is no replacement for undefine.
211 * Changes to the C interface
213 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
215 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
216 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
217 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
219 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
220 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
222 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
224 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
226 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
227 function in the init section.
229 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
231 ** New macros SCM_VECTOR_REF and SCM_VECTOR_SET.
233 Use these in preference to SCM_VELTS.
235 ** The SCM_VELTS macros now returns a read-only vector. For writing,
236 use the new macros SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS or SCM_VECTOR_SET. The use of
237 SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS is discouraged, though.
239 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
241 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
242 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
243 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
244 stays roughly constant.
246 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
247 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
248 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
249 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
250 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
253 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
254 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
255 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
256 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
258 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
260 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
262 ** The struct scm_cell has been renamed to scm_t_cell
264 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
265 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
266 initializes a new cell (see below).
268 ** New functions for memory management
270 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
271 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
272 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
273 cause aborts in long running programs.
275 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
276 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
278 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
279 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
280 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
281 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
282 details and for upgrading instructions.
284 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
285 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
286 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
288 ** New function: scm_str2string
290 This function creates a scheme string from a 0-terminated C string. The input
293 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
295 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
296 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
297 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
298 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
299 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
301 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
302 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
303 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
305 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, QT_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
306 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
308 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
310 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old macros
311 had problems because with them allocation and initialization was separated and
312 the GC could sometimes observe half initialized cells. Only careful coding by
313 the user of SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
315 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
317 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
320 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
322 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
324 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
326 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or, probably better, to use r5rs
327 macros. Also, be aware that macro expansion will not be done during
328 evaluation, but prior to evaluation.
330 ** Removed from scm_root_state: def_inp, def_outp, def_errp, together
331 with corresponding macros scm_def_inp, scm_def_outp and scm_def_errp.
332 These were undocumented and unused copies of the standard ports at the
333 time that Guile was initialised. Normally the current ports should be
334 used instead, obtained from scm_current_input_port () etc. If an
335 application needs to retain earlier ports, it should save them in a
336 gc-protected location.
338 ** Removed compile time option MEMOIZE_LOCALS
340 Now, caching of local variable positions during memoization is mandatory.
341 However, the option to disable the caching has most probably not been used
344 ** Removed compile time option SCM_RECKLESS
346 Full number of arguments checking of closures is mandatory now. However, the
347 option to disable the checking has most probably not been used anyway.
349 ** Removed compile time option SCM_CAUTIOUS
351 Full number of arguments checking of closures is mandatory now. However, the
352 option to disable the checking has most probably not been used anyway.
354 ** Deprecated configure flags USE_THREADS and GUILE_ISELECT
356 Previously, when the C preprocessor macro USE_THREADS was defined,
357 libguile included a thread API. This API is now always included, even
358 when threads are not really supported. Thus, you don't need to test
361 Analogously, GUILE_ISELECT was defined when the function
362 scm_internal_select was provided by Guile. This function is now
363 always defined, and GUILE_ISELECT with it.
365 ** Removed definitions: scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify,
366 s_t_ify, scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
367 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, scm_tc16_allocated,
368 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY, SCM_IM_0_COND,
369 SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED, scm_debug_newcell,
370 scm_debug_newcell2, scm_substring_move_left_x, scm_substring_move_right_x,
371 long_long, ulong_long, scm_sizet, SCM_WNA, SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC,
372 SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL,
373 SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL,
374 SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, moddata, registered_mods,
375 scm_register_module_xxx, scm_registered_modules,
376 scm_clear_registered_modules, scm_wta, *top-level-lookup-closure*,
377 scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
378 scm_eval2, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR, SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR,
379 SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_GC8MARKP, SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK,
380 SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, scm_remember, scm_protect_object,
381 scm_unprotect_object, root_module_lookup_closure, scm_sym_app,
382 scm_sym_modules, module_prefix, make_modules_in_var,
383 beautify_user_module_x_var, try_module_autoload_var, scm_module_full_name,
384 scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module, scm_ensure_user_module,
385 scm_load_scheme_module, scm_port, scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_port_rw_active,
386 scm_close_all_ports_except, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_i_rstate,
387 SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_STRING_UCHARS, SCM_STRING_CHARS,
388 scm_read_only_string_p, scm_makstr, scm_makfromstr,
389 scm_make_shared_substring, scm_tc7_substring, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP,
390 SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP, scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
391 sym_huh, scm_variable_set_name_hint, scm_builtin_variable, SCM_VARVCELL,
392 SCM_UDVARIABLEP, SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_internal_with_fluids,
393 scm_make_gsubr, scm_make_gsubr_with_generic, scm_create_hook, list*,
394 SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4, SCM_LIST5,
395 SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9, scm_listify, scm_sloppy_memq,
396 scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member, scm_end_of_file_key,
397 scm_read_and_eval_x, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
398 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
399 scm_subr_entry, SCM_SUBR_DOC, scm_make_subr_opt, scm_make_subr,
400 scm_make_subr_with_generic, setjmp_type, setjmp_type,
401 scm_call_catching_errors, scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe,
402 scm_strprint_obj, scm_read_0str, scm_eval_0str, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
403 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
404 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
405 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR, scm_strhash,
406 scm_sym2vcell, scm_sym2ovcell_soft, scm_sym2ovcell,
407 scm_intern_obarray_soft, scm_intern_obarray, scm_intern, scm_intern0,
408 scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0, scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup,
409 scm_symbol_value0, scm_string_to_obarray_symbol, scm_intern_symbol,
410 scm_unintern_symbol, scm_symbol_binding, scm_symbol_interned_p,
411 scm_symbol_bound_p, scm_symbol_set_x, scm_gentemp,
412 scm_init_symbols_deprecated, s_vector_set_length_x, scm_vector_set_length_x,
413 scm_contregs, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_OPDIRP,
414 scm_fport, scm_option, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL,
415 SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT, scm_srcprops, scm_srcprops_chunk,
416 scm_info_frame, scm_stack, scm_array, scm_array_dim, SCM_ARRAY_CONTIGUOUS,
417 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA,
418 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY,
419 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
420 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
421 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int,
422 scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int,
423 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell,
424 SCM_ECONSP, SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
425 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable
427 Changes since Guile 1.4:
429 * Changes to the distribution
431 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
433 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
435 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
436 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
437 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
438 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
439 indicate major changes in Guile.
441 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
442 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
443 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
444 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
446 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
447 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
448 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
449 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
450 micro version number.
452 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
454 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
456 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
457 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
459 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
461 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
462 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
463 See INSTALL and README for more information.
465 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
467 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
468 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
469 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
472 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
474 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
477 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
479 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
480 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
482 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
484 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
485 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
488 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
490 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
493 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
496 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
498 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
500 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
501 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
502 open-output-string, get-output-string.
504 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
506 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
508 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
511 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
513 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
515 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
517 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
518 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
519 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
521 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
523 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
525 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
526 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
535 See README there for more info.
537 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
538 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
541 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
543 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
545 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
547 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
548 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
549 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
551 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
553 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
554 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
555 to be named `and-let*', of course.
557 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
558 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
560 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
565 (oop goops active-slot)
566 (oop goops composite-slot)
568 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
569 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
570 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
572 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
574 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
575 in the default environment:
577 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
578 %read-line write-line
580 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
581 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
583 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
585 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
588 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
589 can be used for similar functionality.
591 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
593 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
594 it defines two procedures:
596 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
598 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
599 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
600 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
603 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
605 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
606 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
607 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
610 ** New module (ice-9 match)
612 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
613 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
615 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
617 for complete documentation.
619 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
621 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
622 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
623 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
624 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
626 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
627 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
631 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
632 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
633 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
636 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
639 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
640 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
642 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
643 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
646 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
649 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
651 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
653 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
655 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
657 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
658 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
659 Scheme programs easier.
661 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
662 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
663 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
664 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
665 `cond-expand' when using this option.
668 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
669 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
671 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
674 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
676 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
677 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
678 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
681 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
683 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
685 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
686 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
687 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
688 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
689 was also ASCII, for example.
691 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
693 tag - no replacement.
694 fseek - replaced by seek.
695 list* - replaced by cons*.
697 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
701 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
702 (define m (make-safe-module))
703 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
704 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
705 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
707 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
709 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
710 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
711 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
713 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
715 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
716 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
717 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
718 from the issues related to the module system.
720 *** New function: load-extension
722 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
724 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
726 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
727 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
728 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
730 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
732 This function registers a initialization function for use by
733 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
734 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
735 support dynamic linking).
737 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
739 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
740 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
741 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
742 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
745 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
746 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
747 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
748 library and initialize it explicitely.
750 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
751 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
753 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
755 (define-module (foo bar))
757 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
759 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
761 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
762 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
764 (scheme-report-environment 5)
766 (interaction-environment)
772 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
774 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
775 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
776 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
777 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
779 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
780 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
781 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
782 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
783 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
784 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
785 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
786 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
787 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
788 one eval to the next.
790 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
791 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
792 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
793 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
794 subforms are at the top-level as well.
796 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
797 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
798 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
799 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
800 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
801 used in a lexical environment.
803 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
804 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
805 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
806 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
807 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
808 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
810 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
812 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
813 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
814 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
815 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
816 new facilities: selection and renaming.
818 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
819 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
820 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
822 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
823 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
825 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
826 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
827 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
830 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
832 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
833 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
834 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
835 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
838 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
839 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
840 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
841 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
844 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
845 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
847 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
848 ;; and all four by upcasing.
849 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
850 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
851 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
853 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
856 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
857 :renamer upcase-symbol))
859 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
860 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
861 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
863 See manual for more info.
865 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
867 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
868 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
869 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
871 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
873 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
874 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
875 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
877 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
878 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
879 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
880 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
882 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
884 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
885 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
887 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
888 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
889 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
890 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
891 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
894 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
895 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
896 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
897 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
898 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
899 successful and #f if it wasn't.
901 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
902 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
903 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
904 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
905 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
907 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
908 objects are usually permanent.
910 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
911 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
913 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
915 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
916 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
919 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
923 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
928 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
930 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
931 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
932 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
933 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
935 ** New function `make-object-property'
937 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
938 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
942 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
943 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
947 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
948 source properties eventually.
950 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
952 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
953 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
954 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
956 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
957 will be removed in the next release.
959 ** New define-module option: pure
961 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
966 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
969 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
971 Export names NAME1 ...
973 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
974 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
980 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
983 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
988 ** New function: object->string OBJ
990 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
992 ** New function: port? X
994 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
995 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
997 ** New function: file-port?
999 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
1001 ** New function: port-for-each proc
1003 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
1004 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
1005 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
1006 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
1007 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
1009 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
1011 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
1012 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
1013 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
1014 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
1015 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
1018 ** New function: close-fdes fd
1020 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
1021 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
1022 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
1023 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
1026 ** New function: crypt password salt
1028 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
1031 ** New function: chroot path
1033 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
1035 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
1037 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
1040 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
1042 Get or set the priority of the running process.
1044 ** New function: getpass prompt
1046 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
1049 ** New function: flock file operation
1051 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
1053 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
1055 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
1058 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
1060 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
1061 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
1062 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
1063 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
1064 of the temporary file.
1066 ** New function: open-input-string string
1068 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
1069 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
1070 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
1072 ** New function: open-output-string
1074 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
1075 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
1077 ** New function: get-output-string
1079 Return the contents of an output string port.
1081 ** New function: identity
1083 Return the argument.
1085 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
1086 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
1088 ** New function: inet-pton family address
1090 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
1091 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
1092 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1095 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
1096 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
1098 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
1100 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
1101 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
1102 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1105 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
1106 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
1107 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
1111 Use `identity' instead.
1117 ** Deprecated: return-it
1121 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
1123 Use `string-length' instead.
1125 ** Deprecated: flags
1127 Use `logior' instead.
1129 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
1131 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
1132 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
1133 port-for-each is more flexible.
1135 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
1136 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
1137 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
1139 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
1141 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
1143 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
1145 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
1147 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
1149 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
1150 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
1152 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
1153 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
1155 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
1156 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
1158 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
1160 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
1161 Removed function: builtin-bindings
1163 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
1164 Use module system operations for all variables.
1166 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
1168 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
1171 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
1173 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
1174 The following bugs have been fixed:
1176 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
1177 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
1180 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
1181 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
1182 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
1184 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
1185 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
1187 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
1188 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
1191 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
1192 The expansion used to be like so:
1194 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
1196 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
1198 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
1200 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
1201 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
1203 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
1205 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
1206 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
1207 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
1211 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
1212 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
1214 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
1219 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
1220 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
1222 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
1223 and `d', other keywords allowed.
1224 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
1226 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
1229 * Changes to the C interface
1231 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
1233 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
1234 with "_t". What a concept.
1236 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
1238 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
1240 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
1244 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
1245 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
1247 *** C Functions removed
1249 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
1250 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
1251 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
1252 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
1253 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
1254 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
1255 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
1257 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
1259 Use scm_mem2string instead.
1261 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
1263 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
1265 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
1266 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
1268 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
1270 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
1273 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
1275 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
1277 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
1279 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments.
1283 scm_call_1 (proc, arg1);
1285 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
1287 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list
1292 scm_apply_1 (proc, arg1, args);
1294 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
1296 Create a list of the given number of elements.
1298 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
1300 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
1301 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
1303 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
1305 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
1307 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
1308 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
1309 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
1311 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1313 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
1315 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
1316 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
1317 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
1320 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1322 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
1324 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
1325 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
1327 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
1329 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
1330 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
1331 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
1332 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
1334 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
1335 scm_primitive_property_ref
1336 scm_primitive_property_set_x
1337 scm_primitive_property_del_x
1339 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
1340 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
1342 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
1344 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
1345 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
1346 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
1347 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
1349 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
1351 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
1352 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
1353 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
1354 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
1355 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
1356 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
1357 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
1359 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
1360 scm_remember_upto_here
1362 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
1364 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
1366 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
1367 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
1369 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
1371 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
1373 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
1375 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
1377 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
1379 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
1380 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
1381 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
1382 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
1383 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
1384 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
1386 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
1388 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1390 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
1391 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1392 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
1394 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
1396 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
1397 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1398 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
1400 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
1402 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
1403 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
1406 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
1409 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
1410 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
1413 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1415 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
1417 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
1419 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1421 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
1423 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
1425 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
1426 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
1427 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
1428 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
1429 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
1430 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
1431 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
1432 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
1433 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
1434 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
1435 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
1436 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
1437 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
1438 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
1439 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
1441 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
1442 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
1443 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
1444 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
1445 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
1446 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
1447 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
1448 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
1449 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1450 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
1451 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
1452 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
1453 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
1454 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
1455 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
1456 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1457 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1458 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
1459 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
1460 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
1461 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
1462 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
1463 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
1464 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
1465 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
1466 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
1467 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
1468 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
1469 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
1471 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
1473 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
1475 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
1476 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
1478 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
1480 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
1482 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
1484 Use scm_string_hash instead.
1486 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
1488 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
1490 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
1492 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
1494 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
1497 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
1498 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
1500 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
1502 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
1504 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
1506 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
1508 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
1510 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
1512 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
1514 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
1517 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
1519 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
1521 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
1523 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
1524 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
1526 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
1527 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
1529 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
1531 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
1532 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
1533 scm_module_define, scm_define.
1535 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
1537 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
1539 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
1540 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
1542 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
1543 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
1544 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
1545 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
1547 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
1548 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
1549 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
1551 Use the new ones from above instead.
1553 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
1555 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
1556 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
1557 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
1559 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
1560 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
1562 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
1563 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
1566 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
1567 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
1569 Use the new functions instead.
1571 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
1574 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
1576 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
1578 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
1581 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
1583 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
1586 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
1588 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
1591 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
1592 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
1593 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
1595 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
1597 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
1598 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
1600 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
1601 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
1602 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
1603 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
1606 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
1608 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
1609 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
1610 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
1611 inexact for an exact.
1613 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
1614 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
1615 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
1618 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
1619 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
1620 accept an inexact argument.
1622 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
1623 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
1625 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
1628 ** New number validation macros:
1629 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
1633 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
1635 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
1636 scm_unprotect_object.
1638 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
1640 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
1642 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
1645 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
1647 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
1651 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
1653 * Changes to the distribution
1655 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
1657 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
1658 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
1659 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
1660 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
1661 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
1662 obtain these programs.
1663 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
1664 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
1666 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
1667 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
1668 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
1669 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
1670 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
1672 However, this approach means that minor differences between
1673 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
1674 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
1675 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
1679 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
1682 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
1683 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
1684 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
1685 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
1687 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
1689 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
1691 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
1692 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
1694 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
1695 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
1697 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
1698 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
1700 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
1701 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
1702 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
1703 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
1705 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
1707 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
1711 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
1712 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
1714 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
1716 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
1717 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
1719 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
1720 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
1721 number of objects of that kind.
1723 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
1725 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
1726 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
1727 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
1728 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
1729 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
1731 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
1733 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
1735 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
1737 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
1740 ** New module (ice-9 time)
1742 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
1744 ** New module (ice-9 history)
1746 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
1748 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1750 ** New command line option --debug
1752 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
1754 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
1756 ** New help facility
1758 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
1759 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
1760 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
1761 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
1762 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
1763 (help) gives this text
1765 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
1766 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
1768 Examples: (help help)
1770 (help "output-string")
1772 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
1774 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
1776 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
1777 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
1780 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
1781 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
1782 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
1785 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
1786 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
1787 use absolute filenames when possible.
1789 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
1790 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
1791 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
1794 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
1796 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
1797 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
1798 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
1799 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
1801 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
1803 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
1805 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
1806 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
1807 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
1809 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
1810 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
1811 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
1813 (read-enable 'positions)
1814 (debug-enable 'debug)
1816 ** Backtraces in scripts
1818 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
1822 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
1824 at the top of the script.
1826 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
1827 The second enables backtraces.)
1829 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
1831 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
1832 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
1833 substantially faster than before.
1835 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
1836 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
1838 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
1839 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
1841 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
1843 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
1844 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
1845 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
1847 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
1848 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
1849 when this hook is run in the future.
1851 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
1852 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
1854 ** Improvements to garbage collector
1856 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
1857 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
1860 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
1861 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
1862 more and more memory for certain programs.)
1864 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
1865 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
1867 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
1868 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
1870 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
1871 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
1872 in order not to need further allocation.)
1874 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
1877 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
1878 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
1879 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
1880 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
1882 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
1884 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
1887 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
1889 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
1892 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
1893 GC in percent of total heap size
1896 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
1897 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
1899 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
1901 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
1902 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
1904 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
1906 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
1907 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
1909 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
1911 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
1912 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
1916 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
1917 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
1919 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
1921 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1923 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
1925 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
1927 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
1929 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
1930 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
1932 (simple-format port message . args)
1933 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
1934 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
1935 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
1936 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
1937 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
1938 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
1939 Does not add a trailing newline."
1941 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
1943 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
1944 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
1946 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
1947 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
1949 ** Deprecated: list*
1951 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
1953 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
1955 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
1956 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
1958 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
1959 is returned as result.
1961 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
1963 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
1965 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
1967 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
1968 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
1971 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
1973 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
1975 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
1976 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
1978 * Changes to the gh_ interface
1980 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
1982 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
1984 * Changes to the scm_ interface
1986 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
1988 Thanks to Greg Badros!
1990 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
1992 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
1993 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
1994 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
1996 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
1999 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
2001 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
2002 the readability of argument checking.
2004 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
2006 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
2008 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
2010 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
2011 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
2012 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
2013 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
2014 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
2015 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
2016 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
2018 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
2020 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
2022 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
2023 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
2025 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
2027 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
2028 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
2031 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
2033 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
2034 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
2035 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
2037 Further, it is recommended not to rely on implementation details for guile's
2038 current implementation of bignums. It is planned to replace this
2039 implementation with gmp in the future.
2041 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
2042 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
2043 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
2045 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
2046 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
2047 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
2048 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
2049 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
2050 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
2051 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
2053 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
2054 scm_end_input (object);
2055 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
2056 ptob->flush (object);
2058 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
2059 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
2062 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
2064 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
2066 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
2067 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
2068 removed in a future version.
2070 ** The format of error message strings has changed
2072 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
2073 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
2074 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
2075 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
2077 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
2078 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
2080 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
2083 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
2085 in your configure.in.
2087 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
2092 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
2098 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
2100 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
2104 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
2105 (define make-message string-append)
2107 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
2109 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
2113 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
2118 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
2122 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
2124 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
2125 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
2127 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
2129 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
2130 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
2131 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
2132 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
2133 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
2134 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
2136 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
2137 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
2138 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
2140 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
2141 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
2142 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
2145 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
2146 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
2147 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
2148 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
2149 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
2151 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
2152 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
2153 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
2154 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
2155 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
2156 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
2157 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
2159 Destructors are not yet implemented.
2161 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
2162 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
2163 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
2165 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
2166 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
2167 KEY in the calling thread.
2169 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
2170 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
2171 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
2172 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
2173 associated with the key.
2175 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
2177 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
2178 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
2180 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
2182 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
2183 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
2184 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
2186 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
2188 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
2189 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
2191 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
2193 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
2195 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
2196 returned is undefined.
2198 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
2199 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
2200 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
2202 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
2203 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
2204 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
2206 ** New C level GC hooks
2208 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
2210 scm_before_gc_c_hook
2213 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
2214 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
2215 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
2217 scm_before_mark_c_hook
2218 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
2219 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
2221 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
2222 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
2225 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
2227 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
2228 allocation parameters
2230 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
2231 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
2232 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
2236 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
2237 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
2238 scm_default_max_segment_size
2240 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
2242 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
2243 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
2245 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
2247 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
2248 object and count on the object being protected until
2249 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
2251 The functions also have better time complexity.
2253 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
2254 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
2255 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
2256 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
2257 are no longer needed.
2259 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
2261 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
2262 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
2263 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
2264 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
2266 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
2268 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
2270 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
2272 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
2273 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
2274 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
2275 until this issue has been settled.
2277 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
2279 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
2281 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
2284 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
2286 * Changes to system call interfaces:
2288 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
2289 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
2290 descriptors were checked.
2292 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
2293 atomically written to a pipe.
2295 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
2296 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
2297 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
2298 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
2299 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
2300 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
2301 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
2304 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
2305 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
2306 is changed without calling tzset.
2308 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
2310 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
2311 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
2312 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
2314 (define write-network-long
2315 (lambda (value port)
2316 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2317 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
2318 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
2320 (define read-network-long
2322 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2323 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
2324 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
2326 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
2327 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
2329 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
2330 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
2331 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
2332 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
2334 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
2335 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
2336 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
2337 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
2341 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
2343 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2347 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
2348 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
2349 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
2355 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
2356 for a description of available commands.
2358 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
2359 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
2360 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
2362 (debug-enable 'backwards)
2364 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
2365 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
2367 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
2369 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
2371 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
2372 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
2373 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
2374 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
2375 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
2376 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
2379 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
2381 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
2382 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
2383 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
2384 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
2386 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
2387 the file and should not be affected by this change.
2389 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
2391 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2393 ** Readline support has changed again.
2395 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
2396 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
2397 to activate readline is now
2399 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
2402 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
2404 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
2405 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
2406 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
2409 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
2410 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
2411 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
2414 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
2415 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
2416 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
2417 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
2418 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
2419 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
2421 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
2422 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
2424 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
2426 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
2427 object it receives is the same string passed to
2428 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
2429 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
2430 string, not the suffix.
2432 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
2433 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
2434 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
2436 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
2438 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
2439 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
2440 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
2441 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
2444 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2446 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
2448 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
2449 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
2450 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
2451 appear from left to right.
2453 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
2456 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
2458 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
2459 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
2461 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2465 *** New function: hook? OBJ
2467 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
2469 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
2471 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
2472 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
2473 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
2475 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
2477 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
2479 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
2481 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
2484 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
2486 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
2487 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
2488 mentioning it here anyway.
2490 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
2492 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
2493 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
2494 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
2495 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
2498 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
2500 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
2502 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
2504 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
2505 otherwise return #f.
2507 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
2509 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
2510 returned by `opendir'.
2512 ** New function: using-readline?
2514 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
2516 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
2518 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
2519 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
2521 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2523 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
2525 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
2526 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
2527 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
2529 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
2531 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
2532 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
2534 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
2536 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
2537 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
2538 documentation slots are not yet used.
2540 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
2542 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
2543 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
2544 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
2549 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
2550 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
2551 (string-append x y))
2553 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
2554 can also be used for concatenating strings.
2556 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
2557 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
2558 be made in a clean way.]
2560 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
2562 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
2564 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
2566 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
2567 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
2569 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2571 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
2573 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
2575 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
2577 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
2578 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
2579 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
2580 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
2583 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2585 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
2587 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
2589 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
2591 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
2592 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
2594 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2596 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
2598 Evaluates the body of a special form.
2600 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
2602 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
2603 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
2604 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
2605 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
2606 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
2607 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
2609 This should not make any difference for most users.
2611 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
2613 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
2614 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
2616 *** New functions for applying generic functions
2618 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
2619 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
2620 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
2621 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
2622 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
2624 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
2626 It is now replaced by:
2628 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
2630 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
2631 binds a variable named NAME to it.
2633 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
2635 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
2636 This might change when we get the new module system.
2638 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
2642 Changes since Guile 1.3:
2644 * Changes to mailing lists
2646 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
2648 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
2651 * Changes to the distribution
2653 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
2655 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
2656 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
2657 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
2658 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
2659 you explicitly specify it.
2661 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
2662 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
2663 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
2664 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
2665 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
2668 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
2669 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
2670 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
2671 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
2673 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
2674 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
2675 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
2678 You can activate the readline support by issuing
2680 (use-modules (readline-activator))
2683 from your ".guile" file, for example.
2685 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2687 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
2688 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
2689 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
2690 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
2692 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
2693 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
2696 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2698 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
2699 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
2700 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
2701 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
2702 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
2703 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
2704 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
2705 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
2717 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
2718 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
2719 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
2720 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
2721 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
2726 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
2727 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
2735 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
2740 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
2741 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
2744 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
2745 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
2746 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
2747 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
2749 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
2751 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
2753 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
2754 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
2756 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
2758 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
2760 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
2761 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
2763 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
2766 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
2768 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
2770 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
2772 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
2774 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
2776 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
2778 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
2779 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
2780 when the hook was created.
2782 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
2783 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
2784 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
2785 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
2786 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
2787 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
2788 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
2789 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
2790 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
2792 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
2793 the dlopen family of functions.
2795 ** New function `provided?'
2797 - Function: provided? FEATURE
2798 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
2799 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
2800 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
2802 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
2804 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
2805 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
2806 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
2807 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
2810 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
2811 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
2812 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
2813 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
2815 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
2816 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
2817 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
2820 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
2821 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
2822 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
2823 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
2824 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
2825 but with the flag set.
2827 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
2829 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
2830 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
2832 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
2833 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
2834 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
2835 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
2836 available Scheme format implementations.
2838 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
2839 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
2840 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
2841 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
2842 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
2843 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
2844 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
2845 output is to the current error port if available by the
2846 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
2849 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
2850 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
2851 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
2852 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
2853 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
2854 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
2855 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
2856 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
2858 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
2859 be executed at a time.
2862 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
2864 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
2865 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
2866 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
2868 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
2869 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
2870 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
2871 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
2872 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
2873 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
2874 general form of a directive is:
2876 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
2878 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
2880 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
2882 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
2883 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
2884 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
2887 Any (print as `display' does).
2891 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
2895 S-expression (print as `write' does).
2899 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
2905 print number sign always.
2908 print comma separated.
2910 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
2916 print number sign always.
2919 print comma separated.
2921 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
2927 print number sign always.
2930 print comma separated.
2932 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
2938 print number sign always.
2941 print comma separated.
2943 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
2948 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
2952 print a number as a Roman numeral.
2955 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
2958 print a number as an ordinal English number.
2961 print a number as a cardinal English number.
2966 prints `y' and `ies'.
2969 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
2972 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
2977 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
2981 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
2984 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
2985 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
2987 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2990 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
2991 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
2993 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2996 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
2998 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
3000 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3003 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
3005 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
3007 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3010 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
3013 The sign appears before the padding.
3021 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
3023 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
3028 print N page separators.
3038 newline is ignored, white space left.
3041 newline is left, white space ignored.
3046 relative tabulation.
3052 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
3054 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
3057 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
3059 converts by `string-capitalize'.
3062 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
3065 converts by `string-upcase'.
3068 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
3070 jumps N arguments forward.
3073 jumps 1 argument backward.
3076 jumps N arguments backward.
3079 jumps to the 0th argument.
3082 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
3084 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
3085 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
3087 take argument from N.
3090 true test conditional.
3093 if-else-then conditional.
3099 default clause follows.
3102 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
3104 at most N iterations.
3107 args from next arg (a list of lists).
3110 args from the rest of arguments.
3113 args from the rest args (lists).
3124 aborts if N <= M <= K
3126 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3129 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3132 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3138 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
3140 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
3142 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
3143 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
3144 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
3145 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
3146 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
3147 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
3151 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
3155 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
3161 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
3164 Print a `#\space' character
3166 print N `#\space' characters.
3169 Print a `#\tab' character
3171 print N `#\tab' characters.
3174 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
3175 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
3176 must be a positive decimal number.
3179 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3180 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3181 be processed by `read'.
3184 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3185 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3186 be processed by `read'.
3189 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
3192 prints format version.
3195 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
3196 and format it accordingly.
3198 *** Configuration Variables
3200 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
3201 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
3202 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
3203 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
3206 format:symbol-case-conv
3207 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
3208 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
3209 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
3210 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
3211 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
3213 format:iobj-case-conv
3214 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
3215 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
3218 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
3221 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
3227 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
3228 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
3229 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
3230 `format' padding style.
3233 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
3234 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
3235 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
3236 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
3240 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
3241 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
3242 directive parameters or modifiers)).
3245 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
3246 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
3247 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
3248 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
3249 parameters or modifiers)).
3252 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
3254 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
3256 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
3257 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
3259 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
3260 string-downcase! functions.
3262 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
3263 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
3265 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
3268 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
3271 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
3272 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
3274 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
3276 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
3277 the symbol had be read by `read'.
3279 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
3280 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
3281 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
3282 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
3283 would if STRING were input.
3285 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
3287 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
3288 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
3289 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
3290 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
3293 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
3295 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
3296 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
3299 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
3301 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
3302 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
3304 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
3305 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
3307 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
3308 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
3309 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
3310 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
3312 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
3313 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
3315 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
3316 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
3317 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
3319 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
3320 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
3322 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
3323 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
3324 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
3325 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
3326 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
3328 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
3329 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
3330 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
3331 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
3332 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
3333 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
3335 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
3336 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
3337 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
3340 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
3341 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
3342 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
3343 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
3344 the following grammar:
3345 ((apples (single-char #\a))
3346 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
3347 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
3348 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
3349 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
3350 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
3351 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
3352 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
3353 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
3354 last option in its combination)
3356 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
3357 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
3358 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
3359 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
3361 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
3362 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
3363 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
3365 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3366 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3367 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
3369 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
3370 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
3371 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
3372 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
3373 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
3374 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
3375 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
3376 ordinary argument strings.
3378 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
3379 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
3380 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
3381 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
3383 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
3384 as a list, associated with the empty list.
3386 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
3387 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
3388 - a required option is omitted
3389 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
3390 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
3391 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
3392 - an option predicate fails
3397 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
3400 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
3401 (verbose (required? #f)
3404 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
3405 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
3406 (predicate ,string?))))
3408 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
3409 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3411 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3412 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
3413 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
3414 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
3417 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
3419 It will be removed in a few releases.
3421 ** New syntax: lambda*
3422 ** New syntax: define*
3423 ** New syntax: define*-public
3424 ** New syntax: defmacro*
3425 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
3426 Guile now supports optional arguments.
3428 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
3429 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
3430 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
3431 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
3432 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
3434 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
3435 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
3436 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
3438 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
3440 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
3441 and examples for `lambda*':
3444 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
3446 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
3447 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
3448 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
3449 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
3450 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
3451 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
3452 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
3453 can be checked with the bound? macro.
3455 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
3457 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
3458 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
3459 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
3460 are given as keywords are bound to values.
3462 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
3463 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
3464 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
3465 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
3466 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
3467 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
3468 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
3469 and until the procedure is called.
3471 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
3473 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
3474 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
3475 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
3476 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
3477 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
3478 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
3479 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
3480 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
3481 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
3482 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
3484 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
3485 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
3486 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
3487 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
3490 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
3492 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
3493 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
3494 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
3495 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
3497 ** New syntax: and-let*
3498 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
3500 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
3501 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
3502 (<variable> <expression>)
3505 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
3506 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
3507 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
3510 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
3511 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
3512 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
3513 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
3514 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
3515 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
3516 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
3518 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
3519 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
3520 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
3521 shadow earlier bindings.
3523 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
3525 ** New sorting functions
3527 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
3528 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
3529 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
3530 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
3532 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
3533 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
3536 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
3537 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
3538 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
3540 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
3541 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
3542 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
3543 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
3545 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
3546 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
3547 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
3548 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
3549 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
3552 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
3553 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
3554 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
3555 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
3556 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
3557 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
3559 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
3560 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
3561 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
3563 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
3564 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
3565 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
3568 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
3569 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
3570 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
3572 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
3573 Added for compatibility with scsh.
3575 ** New built-in random number support
3577 *** New function: random N [STATE]
3578 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
3579 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
3580 returned have a uniform distribution.
3582 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
3583 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
3584 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
3585 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
3586 effect of the `random' operation.
3588 *** New variable: *random-state*
3589 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
3590 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
3591 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
3592 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
3593 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
3596 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
3597 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
3598 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
3599 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
3600 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
3602 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
3603 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
3604 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
3605 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
3606 initialized using SEED.
3608 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
3609 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
3610 range between 0 and 1.
3612 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
3613 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
3614 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
3615 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
3616 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
3617 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
3618 or a uniform vector of doubles.
3620 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
3621 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
3622 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
3623 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
3624 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
3625 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
3627 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
3628 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
3629 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
3630 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
3632 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
3633 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
3634 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
3635 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
3637 *** New function: random:exp STATE
3638 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
3639 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
3641 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
3643 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
3646 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
3647 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
3650 ** New function: make-guardian
3651 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
3652 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
3653 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
3654 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
3655 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
3657 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
3658 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
3659 one object if at all.
3661 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
3662 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
3663 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
3665 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
3666 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
3667 read again in last-in first-out order.
3669 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
3670 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
3672 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
3674 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
3675 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
3676 file position is used.
3678 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
3679 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
3680 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
3682 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
3683 redefined using seek.
3685 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
3686 size is not supplied.
3688 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
3689 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
3691 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
3692 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
3694 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
3696 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
3697 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
3698 and returns the contents as a single string.
3700 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
3701 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
3702 lists in serial order.
3704 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
3705 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
3706 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
3708 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
3709 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
3710 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
3711 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
3713 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
3714 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
3715 and #f if an error occured.
3717 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
3719 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
3720 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
3721 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
3722 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
3724 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
3726 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
3729 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
3731 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
3734 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3738 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
3739 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
3741 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
3742 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
3746 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3748 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
3750 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3751 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3753 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3755 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
3756 might change when we get the new module system.
3758 ** The smob interface
3760 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
3761 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
3763 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
3765 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
3769 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
3770 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
3771 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
3772 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
3773 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
3774 will be freed by the default free function.
3776 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
3777 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
3778 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3779 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3781 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
3782 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
3783 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3784 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3786 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
3788 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
3789 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
3793 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
3794 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3795 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3797 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
3798 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
3799 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3800 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3802 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
3803 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
3804 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
3806 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
3807 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
3808 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
3809 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
3811 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
3812 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
3813 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
3815 *** scm_newptob has been removed
3819 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
3821 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
3822 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
3823 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
3825 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
3826 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
3827 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
3829 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
3830 a string port's buffer.
3832 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
3833 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
3834 function pointers which together define the current random number
3835 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
3836 number library functions.
3838 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
3841 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
3842 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
3845 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
3846 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
3848 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
3849 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
3851 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
3852 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
3855 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
3856 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
3857 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
3858 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
3860 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
3861 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
3862 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
3863 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
3864 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
3865 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
3866 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
3868 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
3869 by libguile and the application.
3871 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
3872 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
3873 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
3874 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
3876 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
3877 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
3879 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
3880 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
3881 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
3883 ** Random number library functions
3884 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
3885 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
3886 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
3888 The default random state is stored in:
3890 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
3891 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
3892 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
3897 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
3899 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
3900 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
3901 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
3902 isn't a random state.
3904 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
3905 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
3907 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
3908 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
3909 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
3910 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
3912 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3913 Return 32 random bits.
3915 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3916 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
3918 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3919 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
3921 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3922 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
3924 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
3925 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
3927 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
3928 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
3929 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
3933 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
3935 * Changes to the distribution
3937 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
3938 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
3939 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
3942 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
3943 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
3944 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
3946 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
3947 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
3948 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
3949 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
3952 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
3953 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
3954 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
3956 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3958 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
3960 *** Function: batch-mode?
3962 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
3965 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
3967 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
3968 case has not been implemented.
3970 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
3971 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
3972 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
3975 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
3976 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
3978 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
3980 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
3982 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
3984 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
3985 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
3988 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
3989 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
3990 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
3991 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
3994 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
3996 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
3997 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
3998 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
3999 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
4000 find those libraries.
4002 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
4003 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
4006 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
4008 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
4009 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
4010 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
4011 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
4013 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
4014 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
4015 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
4019 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
4021 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
4022 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
4023 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
4026 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
4027 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
4028 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
4029 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
4031 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
4032 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
4035 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
4036 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
4037 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
4038 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
4039 compiler where to find the libraries.
4041 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
4042 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
4043 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
4045 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
4046 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
4047 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
4048 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
4049 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
4053 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4055 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
4056 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
4057 internationalization support.
4059 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
4060 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
4061 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
4062 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
4063 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
4065 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
4066 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
4067 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
4068 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
4069 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
4071 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
4072 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
4073 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
4074 any GNU mirror site.
4076 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
4078 ** New function: add-history STRING
4079 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
4080 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
4081 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
4083 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
4085 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
4086 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
4087 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
4090 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
4091 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
4092 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
4094 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
4096 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
4099 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
4100 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
4103 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
4104 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
4105 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
4106 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
4107 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
4108 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
4110 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
4111 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
4112 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
4113 of the form mentioned above.
4115 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
4116 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
4117 returned in the special `rest' list.
4119 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
4120 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
4122 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
4124 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
4126 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
4128 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
4129 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
4130 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
4131 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
4132 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
4133 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
4134 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
4135 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
4138 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
4140 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
4142 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
4143 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
4146 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
4147 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
4148 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
4152 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
4153 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
4154 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
4155 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
4156 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
4157 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
4158 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
4159 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
4162 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
4164 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
4165 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
4166 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
4168 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
4170 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
4171 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
4173 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
4174 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
4175 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
4177 Why do we have this function?
4178 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
4179 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
4180 primitive, and display it differently, and
4181 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
4182 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
4185 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
4186 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
4189 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
4190 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
4191 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
4192 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
4194 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
4195 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
4198 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
4199 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
4201 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
4203 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
4204 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
4205 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
4206 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
4207 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
4208 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
4209 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
4212 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
4214 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
4215 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
4217 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
4218 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
4219 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
4220 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
4221 properly continue the print chain.
4223 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
4224 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
4225 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
4226 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
4227 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
4228 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
4229 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
4230 print-state, it is simply ignored.
4232 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
4233 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
4234 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
4235 safest to not check for these pairs.
4237 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
4238 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
4239 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
4240 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
4242 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
4244 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
4245 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
4247 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
4249 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
4251 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
4252 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
4253 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
4255 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
4256 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
4257 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
4259 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
4260 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
4261 the following functions and macros:
4263 Function: make-fluid
4265 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
4266 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
4267 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
4268 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
4269 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
4271 Function: fluid? OBJ
4273 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
4275 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
4276 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
4278 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
4279 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
4281 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
4283 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
4284 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
4285 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
4286 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
4287 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
4288 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
4289 modified by `with-fluids*'.
4291 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
4293 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
4294 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
4295 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
4296 should evaluate to a fluid.
4298 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
4300 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
4301 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
4302 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
4303 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
4304 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
4306 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
4309 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
4311 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
4313 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
4315 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
4318 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
4319 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
4320 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
4321 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
4322 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
4325 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
4326 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
4327 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
4329 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
4330 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
4331 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
4333 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
4334 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
4335 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4336 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
4338 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
4339 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
4340 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4341 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
4343 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
4344 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
4345 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
4346 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
4348 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
4349 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
4350 their revealed counts set to zero.
4352 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4353 Returns an integer file descriptor.
4355 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4356 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
4358 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4359 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
4361 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4362 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
4363 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
4365 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
4366 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
4367 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
4369 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
4370 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
4371 default environment inherited by child processes.
4373 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
4374 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
4375 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
4377 The return value is unspecified.
4379 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
4380 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
4381 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
4382 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
4383 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
4385 The return value is unspecified.
4387 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
4388 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
4396 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
4397 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
4400 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
4403 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
4404 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
4405 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
4407 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
4408 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
4409 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
4410 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
4413 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
4414 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
4416 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
4417 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
4418 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
4419 the `environ' procedure.
4421 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
4422 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
4425 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
4426 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
4428 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
4429 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
4430 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
4431 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
4433 *** procedure: times
4434 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
4435 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
4436 return a selected component:
4439 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
4443 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
4446 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
4450 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
4451 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
4455 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
4456 terminated child processes.
4458 ** Removed: list-length
4459 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
4460 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
4462 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
4464 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
4466 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
4468 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
4469 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
4470 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
4471 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
4473 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
4474 extra complexity it introduces.
4476 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
4477 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
4479 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
4480 variable to any non-empty value.
4482 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
4483 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
4485 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4487 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
4488 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
4490 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
4492 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
4493 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
4495 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
4497 ** vector handling routines
4499 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
4500 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
4501 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
4502 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
4503 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
4505 ** pair and list routines
4507 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
4510 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
4512 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
4515 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4517 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
4519 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
4520 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
4521 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
4522 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
4523 site-specific initialization code.
4525 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
4526 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
4527 initialization processes.
4529 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
4530 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
4531 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
4532 initialized properly.
4534 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
4535 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
4536 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
4538 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
4539 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
4540 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
4541 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
4542 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
4544 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
4546 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
4547 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
4548 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
4549 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
4550 objects the smob refers to get marked.
4552 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
4553 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
4554 which look like this:
4557 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
4559 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
4560 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
4563 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
4564 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
4567 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
4569 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
4570 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
4571 you will need to change your functions slightly.
4573 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
4574 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
4575 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
4576 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
4577 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
4579 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
4580 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
4582 int (*free) (SCM port);
4583 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
4584 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
4585 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
4589 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
4590 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
4591 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
4593 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
4596 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
4597 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
4598 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
4600 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
4601 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
4602 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
4605 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
4609 struct timeval *timeout);
4611 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
4612 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
4613 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
4614 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
4615 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
4616 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
4618 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
4619 scm_catch_body_t body,
4621 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
4624 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
4625 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
4626 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
4627 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
4628 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
4629 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
4631 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
4633 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
4636 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
4637 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
4638 spawning threads from application C code.
4640 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
4641 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
4642 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
4643 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
4644 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
4645 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
4647 ** Removed functions:
4649 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
4650 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
4652 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
4654 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
4655 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
4657 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
4659 ** mbstrings are now removed
4661 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
4662 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
4664 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
4666 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
4667 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
4668 their new names and arguments:
4670 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
4671 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
4672 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
4673 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
4676 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
4678 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
4680 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
4683 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
4685 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
4686 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
4687 pass a #f arg to catch.
4689 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
4691 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
4692 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
4695 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
4696 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
4697 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
4698 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
4699 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
4700 reclaim its storage.
4702 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
4703 worrying that some other function you call will call
4704 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
4705 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
4706 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
4707 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
4710 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
4712 * Changes to the distribution
4714 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
4715 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
4718 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
4719 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
4721 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4722 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4724 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
4726 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
4727 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
4728 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
4730 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4732 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
4733 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
4734 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
4735 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
4736 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
4737 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
4739 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
4740 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
4741 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
4744 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
4745 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
4746 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
4747 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
4749 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
4750 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
4751 libraries to your link command:
4753 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
4754 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
4755 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
4756 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
4758 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
4759 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
4760 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
4762 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4764 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
4765 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
4768 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
4770 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
4771 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
4772 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
4773 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
4774 searched is system dependent.
4776 (dynamic-object? VAL)
4778 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
4780 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
4782 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
4783 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
4785 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
4787 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
4788 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
4789 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
4790 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
4791 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
4794 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
4796 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
4797 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
4798 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
4799 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
4800 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
4802 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
4804 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
4805 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
4807 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
4809 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
4810 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
4811 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
4814 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
4816 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
4817 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
4818 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
4819 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
4821 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
4822 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
4824 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
4826 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
4827 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
4829 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
4831 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
4832 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
4840 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
4842 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
4843 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
4844 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
4845 a more informative way.
4847 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
4848 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
4849 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
4850 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
4851 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
4852 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
4854 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
4855 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
4858 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
4859 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
4860 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
4863 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
4864 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
4865 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
4866 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
4867 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
4868 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
4870 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
4871 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
4872 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
4873 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
4876 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
4877 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
4878 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
4879 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
4880 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
4881 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
4883 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
4884 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
4885 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
4886 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
4887 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
4889 *** regexp functions
4891 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
4892 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
4893 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
4895 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
4896 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
4897 with SCSH regular expressions.
4899 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
4900 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
4901 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
4902 position of STR at which to begin matching.
4904 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
4905 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
4906 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
4907 `string-match' returns `#f'.
4909 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
4910 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
4911 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
4912 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
4913 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
4914 match strings against the compiled regexp.
4916 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
4917 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
4918 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
4919 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
4920 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
4922 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
4924 **** Constant: regexp/extended
4925 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
4926 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
4927 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
4929 **** Constant: regexp/icase
4930 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
4931 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
4933 **** Constant: regexp/newline
4934 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
4936 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
4939 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
4940 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
4941 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
4943 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
4944 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
4945 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
4947 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
4948 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
4949 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
4950 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
4951 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
4954 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
4956 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
4957 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
4958 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
4959 used when different portions of a string are passed to
4960 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
4961 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
4963 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
4964 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
4965 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
4967 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
4968 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
4971 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
4972 and replace them with the contents of another string.
4974 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
4975 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
4976 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
4977 may be one of the following arguments:
4979 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
4981 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
4983 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
4984 the regexp match is written.
4986 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
4987 following the regexp match is written.
4989 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
4990 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
4993 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
4994 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
4995 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
4996 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
4997 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
4998 which should be matched against this regular expression.
5000 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
5003 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
5004 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
5005 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
5006 written out to PORT.
5008 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
5009 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
5010 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
5011 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
5012 will return after processing a single match.
5014 *** Match Structures
5016 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
5017 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
5018 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
5019 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
5020 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
5021 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
5024 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
5025 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
5026 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
5027 information about the original target string that was matched against a
5028 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
5030 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
5031 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
5032 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
5034 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
5035 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
5036 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
5037 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
5038 number N did not match, return `#f'.
5040 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
5041 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
5043 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
5044 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
5046 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
5047 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
5049 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
5050 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
5052 **** Function: match:count MATCH
5053 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
5054 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
5055 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
5057 **** Function: match:string MATCH
5058 Return the original TARGET string.
5060 *** Backslash Escapes
5062 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
5063 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
5064 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
5065 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
5066 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
5067 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
5069 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
5070 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
5071 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
5072 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
5073 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
5074 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
5075 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
5076 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
5078 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
5079 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
5080 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
5081 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
5082 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
5083 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
5084 each match a single backslash in the target string.
5086 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
5087 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
5088 return the resulting string.
5090 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
5091 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
5092 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
5093 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
5094 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
5095 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
5096 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
5097 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
5098 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
5099 translated to the single character `*'.
5101 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
5102 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
5103 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
5104 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
5105 consecutive backslashes:
5107 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
5109 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
5110 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
5111 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
5113 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
5114 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
5115 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
5116 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
5117 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
5118 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
5120 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
5122 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
5123 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
5124 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
5125 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
5126 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
5127 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
5128 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
5129 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
5130 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
5131 cumbersome escape syntax.
5133 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5135 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5137 * Changes to system call interfaces:
5139 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
5142 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
5144 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
5146 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
5149 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
5150 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
5151 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
5152 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
5153 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
5155 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
5156 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
5157 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
5158 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
5159 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
5160 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
5161 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
5164 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
5165 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
5166 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
5169 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
5170 `force-output' on every port open for output.
5172 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
5173 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
5174 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
5175 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
5176 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
5177 installed, you can say:
5179 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
5182 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5184 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
5185 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
5186 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
5187 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
5188 new dynamic roots and threads.
5191 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
5193 * Changes to the distribution.
5195 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
5197 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
5198 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
5199 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
5200 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
5201 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
5202 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
5203 programming language. These are packaged together because the
5204 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
5206 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
5209 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
5210 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
5215 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5217 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
5218 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
5220 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
5221 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
5222 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
5223 the (command-line) function.
5224 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
5225 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
5226 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
5228 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
5229 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
5230 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
5231 command line arguments
5232 -ds do -s script at this point
5233 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
5234 -h, --help display this help and exit
5235 -v, --version display version information and exit
5236 \ read arguments from following script lines
5238 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
5239 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
5241 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5244 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5248 (main (command-line))
5250 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
5252 ekko a speckled gecko
5254 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
5255 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
5256 following list of command-line arguments:
5258 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
5260 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
5261 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
5262 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
5263 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
5264 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5266 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
5268 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
5270 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
5271 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
5274 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
5275 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
5276 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
5277 SCSH) for circumventing them.
5279 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
5280 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
5281 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
5282 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
5284 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
5288 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5292 If the user invokes this script as follows:
5294 ekko a speckled gecko
5296 Unix expands this into
5298 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
5300 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
5301 read from the second line of the script, producing:
5303 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
5305 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
5306 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5308 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
5309 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
5310 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
5311 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
5312 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
5313 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
5314 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
5315 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
5316 it only terminates the argument list.)
5317 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
5318 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
5319 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
5320 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
5321 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
5322 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
5323 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
5324 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
5326 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5328 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
5329 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
5330 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
5331 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
5332 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
5334 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
5335 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
5336 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
5338 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
5340 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
5341 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
5342 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
5343 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
5346 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
5347 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5348 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5350 * Changes to Scheme functions
5352 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
5353 and disabled by default.
5355 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
5356 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
5357 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
5358 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
5360 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
5362 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
5364 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
5365 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
5367 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
5368 (read-set! keywords #f)
5370 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
5371 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
5372 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
5375 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
5376 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
5377 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
5380 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
5381 support for Scheme functions.
5383 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5384 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
5385 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
5386 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
5389 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5390 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
5391 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
5394 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
5395 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
5396 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
5399 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
5400 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
5401 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
5402 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
5403 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
5404 display the result as a prompt.
5405 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
5407 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
5408 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
5409 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
5412 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
5413 procedure of zero arguments.
5415 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
5416 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
5417 argument is bound in the current module.
5419 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
5420 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
5421 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
5422 public bindings into the current module.
5424 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
5425 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
5427 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
5428 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
5430 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
5431 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
5433 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
5434 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
5436 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
5437 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
5439 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
5440 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
5441 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
5442 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
5443 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
5445 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
5446 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
5447 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
5448 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
5450 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
5453 ** Changes to I/O functions
5455 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
5456 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
5457 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
5459 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
5460 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
5461 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
5463 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
5464 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
5466 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
5467 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
5468 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
5469 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
5471 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
5473 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
5474 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
5476 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
5477 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
5478 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
5479 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
5480 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
5483 'trim omit delimiter from result
5484 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
5485 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
5486 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
5488 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
5490 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
5491 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
5493 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
5494 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
5495 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
5496 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
5497 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
5499 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
5500 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
5501 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
5503 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
5504 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
5505 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
5506 above, and defaults to 'peek.
5508 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
5509 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
5511 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
5512 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
5514 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
5516 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
5517 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
5518 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
5519 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
5520 a delimiting character.
5521 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
5523 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
5524 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
5525 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
5526 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
5527 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
5528 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
5530 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
5531 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
5533 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
5534 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
5535 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
5537 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
5538 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
5539 the array to read and write.
5541 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
5542 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
5545 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
5547 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
5550 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
5551 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
5552 Values for COMMAND are:
5554 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
5555 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
5556 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
5557 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
5558 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
5559 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
5560 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
5561 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
5563 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
5565 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
5566 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
5567 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
5568 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
5569 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
5570 corresponding return set will be the same.
5572 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
5575 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
5576 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
5577 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
5578 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
5579 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
5580 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
5581 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
5582 special file being created.
5584 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
5585 clashing with various SCSH forks.
5587 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
5588 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
5589 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
5590 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
5591 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
5592 and originating address.
5594 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
5595 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
5596 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
5598 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
5601 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
5602 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
5605 (status:exit-val STATUS)
5606 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
5607 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
5608 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
5609 this function returns #f.
5611 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
5612 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
5613 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
5616 (status:term-sig STATUS)
5617 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
5618 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
5621 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
5622 a valid STATUS value.
5624 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
5626 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
5627 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
5629 Component Accessor Setter
5630 ========================= ============ ============
5631 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
5632 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
5633 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
5634 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
5635 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
5636 year tm:year set-tm:year
5637 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
5638 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
5639 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
5640 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
5641 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
5643 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
5644 describing the host system:
5647 ============================================== ================
5648 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
5649 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
5650 release level of the operating system utsname:release
5651 version level of the operating system utsname:version
5652 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
5654 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
5655 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
5656 system's user database:
5659 ====================== =================
5660 user name passwd:name
5661 user password passwd:passwd
5664 real name passwd:gecos
5665 home directory passwd:dir
5666 shell program passwd:shell
5668 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
5669 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
5670 system's group database:
5673 ======================= ============
5674 group name group:name
5675 group password group:passwd
5677 group members group:mem
5679 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
5680 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
5684 ========================= ===============
5685 official name of host hostent:name
5686 alias list hostent:aliases
5687 host address type hostent:addrtype
5688 length of address hostent:length
5689 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
5691 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
5692 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
5696 ========================= ===============
5697 official name of net netent:name
5698 alias list netent:aliases
5699 net number type netent:addrtype
5700 net number netent:net
5702 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
5703 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
5707 ========================= ===============
5708 official protocol name protoent:name
5709 alias list protoent:aliases
5710 protocol number protoent:proto
5712 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
5713 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
5717 ========================= ===============
5718 official service name servent:name
5719 alias list servent:aliases
5720 port number servent:port
5721 protocol to use servent:proto
5723 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
5724 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
5727 ======================================== ===============
5728 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
5729 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
5730 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
5731 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
5733 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
5734 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
5735 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
5737 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
5738 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
5740 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
5741 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
5743 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
5744 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
5746 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
5748 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
5750 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
5751 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
5752 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
5754 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
5755 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
5756 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
5757 return the remaining characters as a string.
5759 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
5760 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
5761 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
5763 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
5765 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5767 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
5770 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
5773 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
5774 and returns the array
5776 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
5777 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
5778 the user to interpret the data both ways.
5780 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5782 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
5783 symbol's value from C code:
5785 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
5786 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
5787 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
5788 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
5790 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
5791 without assigning them a value.
5793 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
5794 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
5795 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
5797 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
5798 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
5799 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
5801 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
5802 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
5804 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
5805 doesn't actually care about that.
5807 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
5808 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
5809 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
5811 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
5812 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
5813 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
5814 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
5815 which we have just created and initialized.
5817 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
5818 should one occur. We call it like this:
5819 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
5821 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
5822 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
5823 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
5824 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
5825 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
5826 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
5829 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
5830 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
5831 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
5832 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
5833 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
5834 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
5835 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
5838 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
5839 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
5840 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
5841 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
5842 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
5845 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
5846 scm_internal_catch, except:
5848 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
5849 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
5850 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
5851 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
5854 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
5855 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
5856 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
5858 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
5859 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
5860 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
5861 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
5864 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
5865 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
5866 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
5868 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
5869 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
5870 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
5871 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
5872 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
5874 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
5875 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
5876 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
5878 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
5879 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
5880 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
5882 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
5883 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
5885 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
5886 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
5887 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
5890 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
5891 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
5892 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
5893 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
5894 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
5895 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
5896 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
5899 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
5900 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
5902 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
5903 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
5904 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
5905 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
5906 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
5909 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
5910 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
5912 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
5913 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
5916 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
5917 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
5919 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5922 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
5923 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
5924 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
5925 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
5926 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
5927 given the following arguments:
5929 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
5931 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
5933 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
5935 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5938 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
5939 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
5940 command-line arguments.
5942 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
5943 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
5944 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
5945 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
5946 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
5947 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
5950 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5953 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
5954 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
5956 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
5957 rearranged slightly. They are now:
5959 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5960 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
5961 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
5962 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
5964 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5965 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
5967 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5968 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
5969 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
5970 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
5972 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5973 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
5975 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
5976 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
5978 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
5980 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
5981 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
5982 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
5985 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
5986 returns a port instead of an FD object.
5988 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
5989 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
5994 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
5997 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
5999 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
6000 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
6001 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
6002 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
6004 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
6006 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
6008 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
6009 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
6010 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
6011 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
6012 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
6013 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
6014 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
6015 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
6016 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
6017 for more information.
6019 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
6020 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
6022 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
6023 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
6024 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
6025 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
6026 following two lines at the top of the file:
6028 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6031 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
6032 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
6033 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
6035 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
6037 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6039 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
6042 (display (car args))
6043 (if (pair? (cdr args))
6045 (loop (cdr args)))))
6048 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
6049 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
6050 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
6051 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
6052 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
6053 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
6057 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
6060 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
6063 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
6065 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
6066 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
6067 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
6068 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
6069 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
6072 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
6073 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
6074 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
6075 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
6076 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
6079 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
6082 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
6083 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
6084 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
6087 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
6088 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
6089 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
6091 to see a backtrace, and
6092 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
6093 to see them by default.
6097 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
6099 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
6101 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
6102 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
6105 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
6106 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
6107 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
6108 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
6111 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
6112 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
6113 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
6114 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
6115 functions which inspired them.
6117 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
6118 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
6122 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
6124 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
6126 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
6127 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
6130 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
6131 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
6132 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
6134 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
6135 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
6136 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
6137 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
6138 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
6140 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
6142 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
6143 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
6144 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
6147 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
6150 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
6152 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
6153 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
6154 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
6155 above should serve their purposes.
6157 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
6158 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
6159 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
6160 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
6162 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
6165 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
6166 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
6167 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
6168 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
6170 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
6171 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
6172 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
6173 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
6175 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
6176 for the `read' function.
6179 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
6180 to that of `integer?'.
6182 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
6183 use the R4RS names for these functions.
6185 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
6186 it simply returns the object's property list.
6188 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
6189 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
6190 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
6191 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
6193 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
6195 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
6198 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
6200 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
6201 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
6203 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
6205 void (*main_func) (),
6208 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
6209 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
6210 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
6211 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
6212 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
6214 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
6215 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
6216 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
6217 know which arguments have been processed.
6219 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
6220 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
6221 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
6222 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
6223 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
6225 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
6226 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
6227 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
6228 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
6229 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
6230 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
6231 people from making that mistake.
6233 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
6234 convenient ways to override these when desired.
6236 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
6238 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
6242 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
6245 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
6246 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
6247 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
6248 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
6251 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
6252 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
6253 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
6254 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
6257 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
6258 have been added to the Guile library.
6260 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
6261 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
6262 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
6265 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
6266 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
6267 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
6269 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
6270 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
6271 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
6272 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
6273 argument from the list.
6276 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
6279 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
6280 null-terminated string, and returns it.
6282 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
6283 to a Scheme port object.
6285 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
6286 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
6291 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
6293 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
6294 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
6295 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
6296 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
6297 code as a special datatype.
6299 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
6300 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
6301 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
6302 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
6303 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
6306 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
6307 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
6308 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
6309 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
6310 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
6312 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
6315 Copyright information:
6317 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6319 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
6320 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
6321 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
6322 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
6324 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
6325 of this document, or of portions of it,
6326 under the above conditions, provided also that they
6327 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
6332 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"