1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 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 ** Guile now provide and uses an "effective" version number.
13 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
14 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
15 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
16 so the current effective-version is "1.6". The effective version
17 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
18 items like the versioned share directory name
19 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.6.
21 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
22 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
23 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
24 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
25 with each micro release during a stable series.
27 ** There are two new thread implementation options: "null" and "coop-pthreads".
29 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
30 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
31 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
32 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
33 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
36 The "coop-pthread" (or shorter: "copt") thread implementation will use
37 portable POSIX threads but will restrict them so that only one thread
38 can execute 'in Guile' at any one time. This option will give you the
39 same basic behavior as the old "coop" option, but hopefully in a more
42 The default is now "coop-pthread", unless your platform doesn't have
43 pthreads, in which case "null" threads are used.
45 ** Guile now includes its own version of libltdl.
47 We now use a modified version of libltdl that allows us to make
48 improvements to it without having to rely on libtool releases.
50 * Changes to the standalone interpreter
52 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
54 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
55 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
57 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
59 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
60 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
62 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
64 ** Checking for duplicate bindings in module system
66 The module system now checks for duplicate imported bindings.
68 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more duplicates
69 handlers. For example, to get back the old behavior (which was to use
70 the last imported binding of a certain name), write:
77 If you want the old behavior without changing your module headers, put
80 (default-module-duplicates-handler 'last)
82 in your .guile init file.
84 The syntax for the :duplicates option is:
86 :duplicates HANDLER-NAME | (HANDLER1-NAME HANDLER2-NAME ...)
88 Specifying multiple handlers is useful since some handlers (such as
89 replace) can defer conflict resolution to others. Each handler is
90 tried until a binding is selected.
92 Currently available duplicates handlers are:
94 check report an error for bindings with a common name
95 warn issue a warning for bindings with a common name
96 replace replace bindings which have an imported replacement
97 warn-override-core issue a warning for imports which override core bindings
98 first select the first encountered binding (override)
99 last select the last encountered binding (override)
100 merge-generics merge generic functions with a common name
101 into an <extended-generic>
103 The default duplicates handler is:
105 (replace warn-override-core check)
107 ** New define-module option: :replace
109 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
112 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
113 for the core binding `format'.
115 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
117 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
118 a prefix to all imported bindings.
121 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
123 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
126 ** Merging generic functions
128 It is sometimes tempting to use GOOPS accessors with short names.
129 For example, it is tempting to use the name `x' for the x-coordinate
132 Assume that we work with a graphical package which needs to use two
133 independent vector packages for 2D and 3D vectors respectively. If
134 both packages export `x' we will encounter a name collision.
136 This can now be resolved automagically with the duplicates handler
137 `merge-generics' which gives the module system license to merge all
138 generic functions sharing a common name:
140 (define-module (math 2D-vectors)
141 :use-module (oop goops)
144 (define-module (math 3D-vectors)
145 :use-module (oop goops)
148 (define-module (my-module)
149 :use-module (math 2D-vectors)
150 :use-module (math 3D-vectors)
151 :duplicates merge-generics)
153 x in (my-module) will now share methods with x in both imported
156 There will, in fact, now be three distinct generic functions named
157 `x': x in (2D-vectors), x in (3D-vectors), and x in (my-module). The
158 last function will be an <extended-generic>, extending the previous
161 Let's call the imported generic functions the "ancestor functions". x
162 in (my-module) is, in turn, a "descendant function" of the imported
163 functions, extending its ancestors.
165 For any generic function G, the applicable methods are selected from
166 the union of the methods of the descendant functions, the methods of G
167 itself and the methods of the ancestor functions.
169 This, ancestor functions share methods with their descendants and vice
170 versa. This implies that x in (math 2D-vectors) can will share the
171 methods of x in (my-module) and vice versa, while x in (math 2D-vectors)
172 doesn't share the methods of x in (math 3D-vectors), thus preserving
175 Sharing is dynamic, so that adding new methods to a descendant implies
176 adding it to the ancestor.
178 If duplicates checking is desired in the above example, the following
179 form of the :duplicates option can be used instead:
181 :duplicates (merge-generics check)
183 ** New function: effective-version
185 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
186 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
187 to the distribution" above.
191 Futures is a way of providing an alternative evaluation policy, very
192 similar in principle to "promises". Like promises, futures allow the
193 main process to continue instantly, but while promises postpone
194 evaluation ("lazy" evaluation) until the value is requested, futures
195 immediately starts evaluation in a parallel thread.
197 Futures are good when you want to express that "I'll need the value of
198 this computation sometime soon" and want to allow processing to go on
199 in the background until that time arrives.
201 ** New syntax: future FORM
203 Begin evaluation of FORM in a parallel thread and return the future
204 immediately. (Akin to 'delay'.)
206 ** New procedure: future-ref FUTURE
208 Return the computed value of the future. Wait if the computation is
209 not finished. (Akin to 'force'.)
211 ** New syntax: parallel FORM ...
213 Compute the results of FORM ... in parallel (in a separate thread for
214 each form) and return them as multiple values.
216 ** New syntax: letpar ((VAR EXP) ...) BODYFORM ...
218 Like 'let' but evaluates the binding expressions EXP ... in parallel.
220 ** New functions: par-map, par-for-each PROC ARGLIST ...
222 Like 'map' and 'for-each' but evaluate the procedure PROC in a
223 separate thread for each (set of) argument(s). All applications are
224 guaranteed to be completed before the procedure returns.
226 ** New functions: n-par-map, n-par-for-each N PROC ARGLIST ...
228 Like 'par-map' and 'par-for-each' but evaluate the procedure PROC in N
229 threads. This is useful when PROC uses large amounts of resources
230 and/or the argument list(s) is/are long so that one thread per (set
231 of) argument(s) would consume too much system resources. On a
232 dual-CPU system, N = 4 would often be a good choice.
234 ** Fair mutexes and condition variables
236 Fair mutexes and condition variables have been added. The fairness
237 means that scheduling is arranged to give as equal time shares as
238 possible and that threads are awakened in a first-in-first-out
239 manner. This is not guaranteed with standard mutexes and condition
242 In addition, fair mutexes are recursive. Locking a fair mutex that
243 you have already locked will succeed. Every call to lock-mutex must
244 be matched with a call to unlock-mutex. Only the last call to
245 unlock-mutex will actually unlock the mutex.
247 A fair condition variable must be used together with a fair mutex,
248 just as a standard condition variable must be used together with a
251 ** New functions: make-fair-mutex, make-fair-condition-variable'
253 Make a new fair mutex and a new fair condition variable respectively.
255 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
257 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
258 instead if blocking and indicate failure.
260 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
262 The funtion 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
263 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
266 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
268 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
270 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
272 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
273 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
274 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
277 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
278 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
279 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
282 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
283 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
285 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
287 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
288 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
291 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
292 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
294 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
295 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
296 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
297 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
298 level for the current thread.
300 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
302 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
304 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
305 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
308 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
310 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
312 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
315 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
317 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
320 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
321 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
322 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
324 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
325 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
326 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
327 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
338 ERROR: Numerical overflow
340 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
343 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
345 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
346 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
347 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
358 ** We now have uninterned symbols.
360 The new function 'make-symbol' will return a uninterned symbol. This
361 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
362 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
364 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
367 ** pretty-print has more options.
369 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
370 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
371 maximum output width. See its online documentation.
373 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
375 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
376 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
377 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
379 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
381 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
382 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
384 ** Removed: substring-move-left!, substring-move-right!
386 Use `substring-move!' instead.
388 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
390 Change your code to use either procedure->memoizing-macro or, probably better,
391 to use r5rs macros. Also, be aware that macro expansion will not be done
392 during evaluation, but prior to evaluation.
394 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
396 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
397 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
398 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
399 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
400 without the soft port blocking.
402 ** New debugging feature: breakpoints.
404 Guile now has breakpoints. For details see the `Debugging Features'
405 chapter in the reference manual.
407 ** Deprecated: undefine
409 There is no replacement for undefine.
411 * Changes to the C interface
413 ** New function: scm_effective_version
415 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
416 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
417 to the distribution" above.
419 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
421 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
422 arguments are now passed directly:
424 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
426 This is an incompatible change.
428 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
430 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
431 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
432 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
434 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
435 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
437 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
439 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
441 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
442 function in the init section.
444 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
446 ** New macros SCM_VECTOR_REF and SCM_VECTOR_SET.
448 Use these in preference to SCM_VELTS.
450 ** The SCM_VELTS macros now returns a read-only vector. For writing,
451 use the new macros SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS or SCM_VECTOR_SET. The use of
452 SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS is discouraged, though.
454 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
456 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
457 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
458 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
459 stays roughly constant.
461 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
462 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
463 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
464 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
465 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
468 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
469 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
470 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
471 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
473 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
475 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
477 ** The struct scm_cell has been renamed to scm_t_cell
479 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
480 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
481 initializes a new cell (see below).
483 ** New functions for memory management
485 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
486 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
487 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
488 cause aborts in long running programs.
490 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
491 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
493 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
494 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
495 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
496 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
497 details and for upgrading instructions.
499 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
500 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
501 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
503 ** New function: scm_str2string
505 This function creates a scheme string from a 0-terminated C string. The input
508 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
510 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
511 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
512 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
513 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
514 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
516 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
517 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
518 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
520 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, QT_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
521 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
523 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
525 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old macros
526 had problems because with them allocation and initialization was separated and
527 the GC could sometimes observe half initialized cells. Only careful coding by
528 the user of SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
530 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
532 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
535 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
537 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
539 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
541 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or, probably better, to use r5rs
542 macros. Also, be aware that macro expansion will not be done during
543 evaluation, but prior to evaluation.
545 ** Removed from scm_root_state: def_inp, def_outp, def_errp, together
546 with corresponding macros scm_def_inp, scm_def_outp and scm_def_errp.
547 These were undocumented and unused copies of the standard ports at the
548 time that Guile was initialised. Normally the current ports should be
549 used instead, obtained from scm_current_input_port () etc. If an
550 application needs to retain earlier ports, it should save them in a
551 gc-protected location.
553 ** Removed compile time option MEMOIZE_LOCALS
555 Now, caching of local variable positions during memoization is mandatory.
556 However, the option to disable the caching has most probably not been used
559 ** Removed compile time option SCM_RECKLESS
561 Full number of arguments checking of closures is mandatory now. However, the
562 option to disable the checking has most probably not been used anyway.
564 ** Removed compile time option SCM_CAUTIOUS
566 Full number of arguments checking of closures is mandatory now. However, the
567 option to disable the checking has most probably not been used anyway.
569 ** Deprecated configure flags USE_THREADS and GUILE_ISELECT
571 Previously, when the C preprocessor macro USE_THREADS was defined,
572 libguile included a thread API. This API is now always included, even
573 when threads are not really supported. Thus, you don't need to test
576 Analogously, GUILE_ISELECT was defined when the function
577 scm_internal_select was provided by Guile. This function is now
578 always defined, and GUILE_ISELECT with it.
580 ** Removed definitions: scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify,
581 s_t_ify, scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
582 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, scm_tc16_allocated,
583 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY, SCM_IM_0_COND,
584 SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED, scm_debug_newcell,
585 scm_debug_newcell2, scm_substring_move_left_x, scm_substring_move_right_x,
586 long_long, ulong_long, scm_sizet, SCM_WNA, SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC,
587 SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL,
588 SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL,
589 SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, moddata, registered_mods,
590 scm_register_module_xxx, scm_registered_modules,
591 scm_clear_registered_modules, scm_wta, *top-level-lookup-closure*,
592 scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
593 scm_eval2, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR, SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR,
594 SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_GC8MARKP, SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK,
595 SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, scm_remember, scm_protect_object,
596 scm_unprotect_object, root_module_lookup_closure, scm_sym_app,
597 scm_sym_modules, module_prefix, make_modules_in_var,
598 beautify_user_module_x_var, try_module_autoload_var, scm_module_full_name,
599 scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module, scm_ensure_user_module,
600 scm_load_scheme_module, scm_port, scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_port_rw_active,
601 scm_close_all_ports_except, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_i_rstate,
602 SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_STRING_UCHARS, SCM_STRING_CHARS,
603 scm_read_only_string_p, scm_makstr, scm_makfromstr,
604 scm_make_shared_substring, scm_tc7_substring, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP,
605 SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP, scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
606 sym_huh, scm_variable_set_name_hint, scm_builtin_variable, SCM_VARVCELL,
607 SCM_UDVARIABLEP, SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_internal_with_fluids,
608 scm_make_gsubr, scm_make_gsubr_with_generic, scm_create_hook, list*,
609 SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4, SCM_LIST5,
610 SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9, scm_listify, scm_sloppy_memq,
611 scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member, scm_end_of_file_key,
612 scm_read_and_eval_x, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
613 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
614 scm_subr_entry, SCM_SUBR_DOC, scm_make_subr_opt, scm_make_subr,
615 scm_make_subr_with_generic, setjmp_type, setjmp_type,
616 scm_call_catching_errors, scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe,
617 scm_strprint_obj, scm_read_0str, scm_eval_0str, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
618 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
619 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
620 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR, scm_strhash,
621 scm_sym2vcell, scm_sym2ovcell_soft, scm_sym2ovcell,
622 scm_intern_obarray_soft, scm_intern_obarray, scm_intern, scm_intern0,
623 scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0, scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup,
624 scm_symbol_value0, scm_string_to_obarray_symbol, scm_intern_symbol,
625 scm_unintern_symbol, scm_symbol_binding, scm_symbol_interned_p,
626 scm_symbol_bound_p, scm_symbol_set_x, scm_gentemp,
627 scm_init_symbols_deprecated, s_vector_set_length_x, scm_vector_set_length_x,
628 scm_contregs, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_OPDIRP,
629 scm_fport, scm_option, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL,
630 SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT, scm_srcprops, scm_srcprops_chunk,
631 scm_info_frame, scm_stack, scm_array, scm_array_dim, SCM_ARRAY_CONTIGUOUS,
632 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA,
633 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY,
634 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
635 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
636 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int,
637 scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int,
638 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell,
639 SCM_ECONSP, SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
640 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable
642 Changes since Guile 1.4:
644 * Changes to the distribution
646 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
648 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
650 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
651 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
652 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
653 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
654 indicate major changes in Guile.
656 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
657 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
658 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
659 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
661 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
662 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
663 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
664 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
665 micro version number.
667 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
669 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
671 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
672 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
674 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
676 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
677 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
678 See INSTALL and README for more information.
680 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
682 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
683 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
684 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
687 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
689 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
692 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
694 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
695 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
697 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
699 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
700 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
703 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
705 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
708 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
711 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
713 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
715 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
716 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
717 open-output-string, get-output-string.
719 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
721 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
723 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
726 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
728 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
730 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
732 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
733 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
734 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
736 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
738 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
740 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
741 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
750 See README there for more info.
752 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
753 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
756 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
758 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
760 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
762 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
763 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
764 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
766 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
768 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
769 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
770 to be named `and-let*', of course.
772 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
773 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
775 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
780 (oop goops active-slot)
781 (oop goops composite-slot)
783 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
784 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
785 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
787 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
789 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
790 in the default environment:
792 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
793 %read-line write-line
795 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
796 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
798 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
800 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
803 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
804 can be used for similar functionality.
806 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
808 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
809 it defines two procedures:
811 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
813 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
814 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
815 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
818 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
820 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
821 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
822 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
825 ** New module (ice-9 match)
827 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
828 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
830 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
832 for complete documentation.
834 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
836 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
837 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
838 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
839 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
841 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
842 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
846 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
847 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
848 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
851 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
854 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
855 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
857 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
858 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
861 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
864 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
866 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
868 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
870 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
872 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
873 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
874 Scheme programs easier.
876 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
877 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
878 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
879 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
880 `cond-expand' when using this option.
883 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
884 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
886 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
889 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
891 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
892 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
893 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
896 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
898 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
900 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
901 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
902 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
903 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
904 was also ASCII, for example.
906 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
908 tag - no replacement.
909 fseek - replaced by seek.
910 list* - replaced by cons*.
912 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
916 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
917 (define m (make-safe-module))
918 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
919 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
920 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
922 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
924 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
925 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
926 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
928 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
930 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
931 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
932 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
933 from the issues related to the module system.
935 *** New function: load-extension
937 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
939 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
941 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
942 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
943 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
945 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
947 This function registers a initialization function for use by
948 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
949 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
950 support dynamic linking).
952 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
954 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
955 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
956 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
957 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
960 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
961 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
962 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
963 library and initialize it explicitely.
965 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
966 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
968 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
970 (define-module (foo bar))
972 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
974 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
976 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
977 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
979 (scheme-report-environment 5)
981 (interaction-environment)
987 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
989 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
990 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
991 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
992 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
994 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
995 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
996 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
997 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
998 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
999 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
1000 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
1001 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
1002 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
1003 one eval to the next.
1005 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
1006 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
1007 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
1008 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
1009 subforms are at the top-level as well.
1011 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
1012 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
1013 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
1014 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
1015 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
1016 used in a lexical environment.
1018 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
1019 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
1020 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
1021 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
1022 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
1023 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
1025 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
1027 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
1028 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
1029 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
1030 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
1031 new facilities: selection and renaming.
1033 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
1034 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
1035 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
1037 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
1038 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
1040 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
1041 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
1042 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1044 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1045 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
1047 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
1048 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
1049 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
1050 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
1053 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1054 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
1055 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
1056 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1058 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1059 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1060 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
1062 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1063 ;; and all four by upcasing.
1064 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
1065 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
1066 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
1068 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1070 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1071 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1072 :renamer upcase-symbol))
1074 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
1075 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
1076 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
1078 See manual for more info.
1080 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
1082 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
1083 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
1084 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
1086 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
1088 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
1089 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
1090 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
1092 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
1093 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
1094 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
1095 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
1097 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
1099 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
1100 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
1102 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
1103 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
1104 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
1105 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
1106 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
1109 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
1110 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
1111 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
1112 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
1113 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
1114 successful and #f if it wasn't.
1116 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
1117 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
1118 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
1119 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
1120 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
1122 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
1123 objects are usually permanent.
1125 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
1126 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
1128 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
1130 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
1131 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
1134 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
1138 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
1143 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
1145 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
1146 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
1147 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
1148 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
1150 ** New function `make-object-property'
1152 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
1153 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
1157 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
1158 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
1162 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
1163 source properties eventually.
1165 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
1167 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
1168 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
1169 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
1171 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
1172 will be removed in the next release.
1174 ** New define-module option: pure
1176 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
1181 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
1184 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
1186 Export names NAME1 ...
1188 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
1189 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
1193 (define-module (foo)
1195 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
1198 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
1203 ** New function: object->string OBJ
1205 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
1207 ** New function: port? X
1209 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
1210 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
1212 ** New function: file-port?
1214 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
1216 ** New function: port-for-each proc
1218 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
1219 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
1220 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
1221 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
1222 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
1224 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
1226 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
1227 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
1228 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
1229 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
1230 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
1233 ** New function: close-fdes fd
1235 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
1236 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
1237 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
1238 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
1241 ** New function: crypt password salt
1243 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
1246 ** New function: chroot path
1248 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
1250 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
1252 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
1255 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
1257 Get or set the priority of the running process.
1259 ** New function: getpass prompt
1261 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
1264 ** New function: flock file operation
1266 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
1268 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
1270 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
1273 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
1275 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
1276 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
1277 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
1278 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
1279 of the temporary file.
1281 ** New function: open-input-string string
1283 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
1284 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
1285 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
1287 ** New function: open-output-string
1289 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
1290 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
1292 ** New function: get-output-string
1294 Return the contents of an output string port.
1296 ** New function: identity
1298 Return the argument.
1300 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
1301 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
1303 ** New function: inet-pton family address
1305 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
1306 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
1307 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1310 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
1311 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
1313 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
1315 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
1316 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
1317 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1320 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
1321 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
1322 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
1326 Use `identity' instead.
1332 ** Deprecated: return-it
1336 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
1338 Use `string-length' instead.
1340 ** Deprecated: flags
1342 Use `logior' instead.
1344 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
1346 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
1347 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
1348 port-for-each is more flexible.
1350 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
1351 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
1352 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
1354 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
1356 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
1358 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
1360 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
1362 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
1364 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
1365 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
1367 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
1368 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
1370 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
1371 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
1373 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
1375 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
1376 Removed function: builtin-bindings
1378 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
1379 Use module system operations for all variables.
1381 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
1383 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
1386 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
1388 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
1389 The following bugs have been fixed:
1391 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
1392 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
1395 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
1396 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
1397 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
1399 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
1400 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
1402 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
1403 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
1406 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
1407 The expansion used to be like so:
1409 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
1411 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
1413 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
1415 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
1416 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
1418 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
1420 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
1421 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
1422 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
1426 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
1427 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
1429 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
1434 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
1435 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
1437 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
1438 and `d', other keywords allowed.
1439 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
1441 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
1444 * Changes to the C interface
1446 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
1448 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
1449 with "_t". What a concept.
1451 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
1453 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
1455 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
1459 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
1460 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
1462 *** C Functions removed
1464 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
1465 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
1466 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
1467 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
1468 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
1469 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
1470 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
1472 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
1474 Use scm_mem2string instead.
1476 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
1478 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
1480 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
1481 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
1483 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
1485 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
1488 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
1490 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
1492 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
1494 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments.
1498 scm_call_1 (proc, arg1);
1500 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
1502 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list
1507 scm_apply_1 (proc, arg1, args);
1509 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
1511 Create a list of the given number of elements.
1513 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
1515 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
1516 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
1518 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
1520 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
1522 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
1523 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
1524 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
1526 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1528 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
1530 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
1531 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
1532 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
1535 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1537 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
1539 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
1540 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
1542 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
1544 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
1545 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
1546 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
1547 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
1549 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
1550 scm_primitive_property_ref
1551 scm_primitive_property_set_x
1552 scm_primitive_property_del_x
1554 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
1555 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
1557 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
1559 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
1560 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
1561 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
1562 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
1564 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
1566 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
1567 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
1568 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
1569 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
1570 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
1571 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
1572 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
1574 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
1575 scm_remember_upto_here
1577 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
1579 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
1581 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
1582 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
1584 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
1586 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
1588 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
1590 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
1592 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
1594 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
1595 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
1596 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
1597 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
1598 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
1599 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
1601 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
1603 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1605 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
1606 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1607 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
1609 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
1611 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
1612 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1613 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
1615 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
1617 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
1618 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
1621 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
1624 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
1625 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
1628 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1630 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
1632 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
1634 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1636 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
1638 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
1640 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
1641 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
1642 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
1643 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
1644 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
1645 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
1646 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
1647 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
1648 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
1649 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
1650 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
1651 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
1652 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
1653 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
1654 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
1656 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
1657 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
1658 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
1659 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
1660 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
1661 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
1662 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
1663 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
1664 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1665 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
1666 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
1667 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
1668 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
1669 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
1670 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
1671 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1672 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1673 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
1674 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
1675 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
1676 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
1677 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
1678 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
1679 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
1680 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
1681 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
1682 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
1683 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
1684 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
1686 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
1688 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
1690 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
1691 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
1693 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
1695 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
1697 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
1699 Use scm_string_hash instead.
1701 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
1703 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
1705 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
1707 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
1709 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
1712 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
1713 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
1715 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
1717 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
1719 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
1721 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
1723 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
1725 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
1727 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
1729 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
1732 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
1734 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
1736 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
1738 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
1739 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
1741 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
1742 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
1744 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
1746 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
1747 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
1748 scm_module_define, scm_define.
1750 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
1752 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
1754 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
1755 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
1757 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
1758 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
1759 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
1760 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
1762 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
1763 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
1764 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
1766 Use the new ones from above instead.
1768 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
1770 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
1771 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
1772 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
1774 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
1775 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
1777 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
1778 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
1781 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
1782 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
1784 Use the new functions instead.
1786 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
1789 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
1791 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
1793 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
1796 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
1798 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
1801 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
1803 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
1806 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
1807 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
1808 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
1810 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
1812 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
1813 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
1815 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
1816 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
1817 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
1818 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
1821 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
1823 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
1824 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
1825 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
1826 inexact for an exact.
1828 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
1829 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
1830 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
1833 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
1834 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
1835 accept an inexact argument.
1837 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
1838 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
1840 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
1843 ** New number validation macros:
1844 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
1848 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
1850 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
1851 scm_unprotect_object.
1853 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
1855 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
1857 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
1860 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
1862 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
1866 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
1868 * Changes to the distribution
1870 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
1872 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
1873 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
1874 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
1875 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
1876 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
1877 obtain these programs.
1878 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
1879 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
1881 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
1882 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
1883 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
1884 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
1885 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
1887 However, this approach means that minor differences between
1888 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
1889 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
1890 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
1894 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
1897 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
1898 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
1899 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
1900 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
1902 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
1904 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
1906 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
1907 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
1909 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
1910 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
1912 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
1913 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
1915 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
1916 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
1917 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
1918 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
1920 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
1922 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
1926 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
1927 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
1929 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
1931 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
1932 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
1934 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
1935 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
1936 number of objects of that kind.
1938 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
1940 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
1941 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
1942 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
1943 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
1944 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
1946 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
1948 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
1950 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
1952 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
1955 ** New module (ice-9 time)
1957 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
1959 ** New module (ice-9 history)
1961 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
1963 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1965 ** New command line option --debug
1967 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
1969 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
1971 ** New help facility
1973 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
1974 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
1975 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
1976 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
1977 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
1978 (help) gives this text
1980 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
1981 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
1983 Examples: (help help)
1985 (help "output-string")
1987 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
1989 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
1991 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
1992 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
1995 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
1996 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
1997 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
2000 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
2001 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
2002 use absolute filenames when possible.
2004 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
2005 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
2006 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
2009 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
2011 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
2012 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
2013 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
2014 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
2016 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
2018 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
2020 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
2021 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
2022 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
2024 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
2025 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
2026 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
2028 (read-enable 'positions)
2029 (debug-enable 'debug)
2031 ** Backtraces in scripts
2033 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
2037 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
2039 at the top of the script.
2041 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
2042 The second enables backtraces.)
2044 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
2046 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
2047 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
2048 substantially faster than before.
2050 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
2051 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
2053 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
2054 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
2056 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
2058 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
2059 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
2060 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
2062 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
2063 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
2064 when this hook is run in the future.
2066 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
2067 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
2069 ** Improvements to garbage collector
2071 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
2072 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
2075 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
2076 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
2077 more and more memory for certain programs.)
2079 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
2080 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
2082 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
2083 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
2085 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
2086 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
2087 in order not to need further allocation.)
2089 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
2092 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
2093 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
2094 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
2095 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
2097 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
2099 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
2102 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
2104 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
2107 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
2108 GC in percent of total heap size
2111 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
2112 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
2114 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
2116 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
2117 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
2119 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
2121 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
2122 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
2124 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
2126 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
2127 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
2131 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
2132 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
2134 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
2136 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2138 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
2140 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
2142 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
2144 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
2145 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
2147 (simple-format port message . args)
2148 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
2149 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
2150 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
2151 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
2152 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
2153 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
2154 Does not add a trailing newline."
2156 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
2158 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
2159 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
2161 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
2162 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
2164 ** Deprecated: list*
2166 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
2168 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
2170 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
2171 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
2173 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
2174 is returned as result.
2176 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
2178 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
2180 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
2182 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
2183 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
2186 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
2188 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
2190 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
2191 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
2193 * Changes to the gh_ interface
2195 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
2197 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
2199 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2201 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
2203 Thanks to Greg Badros!
2205 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2207 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2208 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
2209 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
2211 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
2214 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
2216 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
2217 the readability of argument checking.
2219 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
2221 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
2223 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
2225 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
2226 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
2227 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
2228 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
2229 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
2230 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
2231 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
2233 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
2235 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
2237 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
2238 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
2240 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
2242 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
2243 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
2246 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
2248 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
2249 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
2250 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
2252 Further, it is recommended not to rely on implementation details for guile's
2253 current implementation of bignums. It is planned to replace this
2254 implementation with gmp in the future.
2256 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
2257 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
2258 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
2260 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
2261 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
2262 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
2263 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
2264 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
2265 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
2266 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
2268 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
2269 scm_end_input (object);
2270 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
2271 ptob->flush (object);
2273 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
2274 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
2277 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
2279 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
2281 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
2282 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
2283 removed in a future version.
2285 ** The format of error message strings has changed
2287 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
2288 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
2289 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
2290 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
2292 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
2293 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
2295 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
2298 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
2300 in your configure.in.
2302 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
2307 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
2313 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
2315 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
2319 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
2320 (define make-message string-append)
2322 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
2324 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
2328 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
2333 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
2337 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
2339 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
2340 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
2342 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
2344 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
2345 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
2346 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
2347 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
2348 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
2349 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
2351 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
2352 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
2353 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
2355 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
2356 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
2357 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
2360 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
2361 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
2362 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
2363 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
2364 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
2366 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
2367 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
2368 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
2369 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
2370 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
2371 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
2372 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
2374 Destructors are not yet implemented.
2376 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
2377 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
2378 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
2380 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
2381 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
2382 KEY in the calling thread.
2384 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
2385 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
2386 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
2387 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
2388 associated with the key.
2390 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
2392 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
2393 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
2395 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
2397 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
2398 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
2399 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
2401 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
2403 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
2404 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
2406 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
2408 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
2410 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
2411 returned is undefined.
2413 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
2414 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
2415 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
2417 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
2418 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
2419 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
2421 ** New C level GC hooks
2423 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
2425 scm_before_gc_c_hook
2428 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
2429 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
2430 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
2432 scm_before_mark_c_hook
2433 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
2434 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
2436 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
2437 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
2440 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
2442 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
2443 allocation parameters
2445 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
2446 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
2447 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
2451 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
2452 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
2453 scm_default_max_segment_size
2455 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
2457 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
2458 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
2460 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
2462 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
2463 object and count on the object being protected until
2464 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
2466 The functions also have better time complexity.
2468 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
2469 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
2470 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
2471 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
2472 are no longer needed.
2474 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
2476 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
2477 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
2478 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
2479 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
2481 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
2483 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
2485 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
2487 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
2488 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
2489 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
2490 until this issue has been settled.
2492 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
2494 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
2496 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
2499 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
2501 * Changes to system call interfaces:
2503 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
2504 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
2505 descriptors were checked.
2507 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
2508 atomically written to a pipe.
2510 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
2511 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
2512 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
2513 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
2514 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
2515 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
2516 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
2519 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
2520 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
2521 is changed without calling tzset.
2523 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
2525 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
2526 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
2527 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
2529 (define write-network-long
2530 (lambda (value port)
2531 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2532 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
2533 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
2535 (define read-network-long
2537 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2538 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
2539 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
2541 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
2542 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
2544 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
2545 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
2546 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
2547 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
2549 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
2550 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
2551 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
2552 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
2556 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
2558 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2562 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
2563 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
2564 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
2570 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
2571 for a description of available commands.
2573 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
2574 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
2575 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
2577 (debug-enable 'backwards)
2579 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
2580 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
2582 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
2584 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
2586 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
2587 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
2588 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
2589 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
2590 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
2591 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
2594 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
2596 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
2597 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
2598 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
2599 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
2601 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
2602 the file and should not be affected by this change.
2604 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
2606 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2608 ** Readline support has changed again.
2610 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
2611 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
2612 to activate readline is now
2614 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
2617 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
2619 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
2620 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
2621 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
2624 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
2625 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
2626 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
2629 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
2630 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
2631 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
2632 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
2633 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
2634 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
2636 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
2637 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
2639 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
2641 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
2642 object it receives is the same string passed to
2643 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
2644 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
2645 string, not the suffix.
2647 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
2648 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
2649 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
2651 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
2653 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
2654 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
2655 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
2656 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
2659 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2661 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
2663 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
2664 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
2665 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
2666 appear from left to right.
2668 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
2671 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
2673 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
2674 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
2676 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2680 *** New function: hook? OBJ
2682 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
2684 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
2686 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
2687 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
2688 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
2690 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
2692 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
2694 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
2696 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
2699 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
2701 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
2702 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
2703 mentioning it here anyway.
2705 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
2707 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
2708 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
2709 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
2710 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
2713 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
2715 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
2717 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
2719 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
2720 otherwise return #f.
2722 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
2724 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
2725 returned by `opendir'.
2727 ** New function: using-readline?
2729 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
2731 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
2733 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
2734 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
2736 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2738 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
2740 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
2741 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
2742 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
2744 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
2746 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
2747 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
2749 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
2751 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
2752 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
2753 documentation slots are not yet used.
2755 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
2757 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
2758 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
2759 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
2764 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
2765 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
2766 (string-append x y))
2768 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
2769 can also be used for concatenating strings.
2771 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
2772 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
2773 be made in a clean way.]
2775 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
2777 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
2779 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
2781 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
2782 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
2784 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2786 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
2788 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
2790 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
2792 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
2793 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
2794 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
2795 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
2798 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2800 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
2802 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
2804 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
2806 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
2807 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
2809 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2811 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
2813 Evaluates the body of a special form.
2815 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
2817 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
2818 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
2819 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
2820 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
2821 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
2822 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
2824 This should not make any difference for most users.
2826 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
2828 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
2829 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
2831 *** New functions for applying generic functions
2833 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
2834 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
2835 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
2836 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
2837 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
2839 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
2841 It is now replaced by:
2843 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
2845 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
2846 binds a variable named NAME to it.
2848 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
2850 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
2851 This might change when we get the new module system.
2853 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
2857 Changes since Guile 1.3:
2859 * Changes to mailing lists
2861 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
2863 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
2866 * Changes to the distribution
2868 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
2870 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
2871 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
2872 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
2873 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
2874 you explicitly specify it.
2876 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
2877 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
2878 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
2879 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
2880 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
2883 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
2884 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
2885 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
2886 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
2888 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
2889 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
2890 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
2893 You can activate the readline support by issuing
2895 (use-modules (readline-activator))
2898 from your ".guile" file, for example.
2900 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2902 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
2903 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
2904 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
2905 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
2907 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
2908 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
2911 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2913 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
2914 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
2915 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
2916 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
2917 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
2918 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
2919 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
2920 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
2932 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
2933 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
2934 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
2935 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
2936 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
2941 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
2942 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
2950 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
2955 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
2956 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
2959 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
2960 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
2961 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
2962 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
2964 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
2966 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
2968 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
2969 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
2971 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
2973 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
2975 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
2976 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
2978 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
2981 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
2983 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
2985 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
2987 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
2989 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
2991 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
2993 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
2994 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
2995 when the hook was created.
2997 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
2998 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
2999 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
3000 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
3001 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
3002 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
3003 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
3004 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
3005 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
3007 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
3008 the dlopen family of functions.
3010 ** New function `provided?'
3012 - Function: provided? FEATURE
3013 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
3014 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
3015 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
3017 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
3019 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
3020 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
3021 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
3022 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3025 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3026 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
3027 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
3028 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
3030 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
3031 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
3032 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
3035 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
3036 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
3037 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
3038 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
3039 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
3040 but with the flag set.
3042 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
3044 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
3045 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
3047 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
3048 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
3049 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
3050 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
3051 available Scheme format implementations.
3053 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
3054 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
3055 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
3056 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
3057 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
3058 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
3059 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
3060 output is to the current error port if available by the
3061 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
3064 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
3065 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
3066 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
3067 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
3068 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
3069 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
3070 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
3071 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
3073 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
3074 be executed at a time.
3077 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
3079 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
3080 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
3081 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
3083 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
3084 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
3085 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
3086 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
3087 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
3088 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
3089 general form of a directive is:
3091 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
3093 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
3095 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3097 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
3098 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
3099 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
3102 Any (print as `display' does).
3106 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
3110 S-expression (print as `write' does).
3114 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
3120 print number sign always.
3123 print comma separated.
3125 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
3131 print number sign always.
3134 print comma separated.
3136 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
3142 print number sign always.
3145 print comma separated.
3147 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
3153 print number sign always.
3156 print comma separated.
3158 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
3163 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
3167 print a number as a Roman numeral.
3170 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
3173 print a number as an ordinal English number.
3176 print a number as a cardinal English number.
3181 prints `y' and `ies'.
3184 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3187 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3192 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
3196 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
3199 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
3200 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
3202 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3205 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
3206 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
3208 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3211 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
3213 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
3215 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3218 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
3220 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
3222 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3225 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
3228 The sign appears before the padding.
3236 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
3238 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
3243 print N page separators.
3253 newline is ignored, white space left.
3256 newline is left, white space ignored.
3261 relative tabulation.
3267 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
3269 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
3272 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
3274 converts by `string-capitalize'.
3277 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
3280 converts by `string-upcase'.
3283 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
3285 jumps N arguments forward.
3288 jumps 1 argument backward.
3291 jumps N arguments backward.
3294 jumps to the 0th argument.
3297 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
3299 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
3300 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
3302 take argument from N.
3305 true test conditional.
3308 if-else-then conditional.
3314 default clause follows.
3317 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
3319 at most N iterations.
3322 args from next arg (a list of lists).
3325 args from the rest of arguments.
3328 args from the rest args (lists).
3339 aborts if N <= M <= K
3341 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3344 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3347 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3353 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
3355 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
3357 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
3358 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
3359 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
3360 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
3361 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
3362 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
3366 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
3370 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
3376 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
3379 Print a `#\space' character
3381 print N `#\space' characters.
3384 Print a `#\tab' character
3386 print N `#\tab' characters.
3389 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
3390 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
3391 must be a positive decimal number.
3394 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3395 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3396 be processed by `read'.
3399 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3400 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3401 be processed by `read'.
3404 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
3407 prints format version.
3410 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
3411 and format it accordingly.
3413 *** Configuration Variables
3415 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
3416 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
3417 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
3418 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
3421 format:symbol-case-conv
3422 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
3423 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
3424 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
3425 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
3426 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
3428 format:iobj-case-conv
3429 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
3430 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
3433 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
3436 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
3442 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
3443 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
3444 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
3445 `format' padding style.
3448 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
3449 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
3450 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
3451 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
3455 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
3456 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
3457 directive parameters or modifiers)).
3460 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
3461 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
3462 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
3463 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
3464 parameters or modifiers)).
3467 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
3469 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
3471 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
3472 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
3474 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
3475 string-downcase! functions.
3477 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
3478 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
3480 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
3483 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
3486 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
3487 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
3489 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
3491 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
3492 the symbol had be read by `read'.
3494 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
3495 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
3496 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
3497 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
3498 would if STRING were input.
3500 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
3502 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
3503 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
3504 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
3505 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
3508 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
3510 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
3511 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
3514 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
3516 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
3517 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
3519 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
3520 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
3522 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
3523 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
3524 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
3525 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
3527 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
3528 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
3530 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
3531 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
3532 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
3534 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
3535 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
3537 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
3538 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
3539 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
3540 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
3541 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
3543 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
3544 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
3545 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
3546 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
3547 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
3548 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
3550 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
3551 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
3552 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
3555 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
3556 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
3557 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
3558 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
3559 the following grammar:
3560 ((apples (single-char #\a))
3561 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
3562 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
3563 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
3564 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
3565 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
3566 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
3567 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
3568 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
3569 last option in its combination)
3571 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
3572 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
3573 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
3574 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
3576 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
3577 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
3578 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
3580 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3581 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3582 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
3584 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
3585 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
3586 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
3587 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
3588 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
3589 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
3590 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
3591 ordinary argument strings.
3593 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
3594 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
3595 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
3596 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
3598 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
3599 as a list, associated with the empty list.
3601 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
3602 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
3603 - a required option is omitted
3604 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
3605 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
3606 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
3607 - an option predicate fails
3612 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
3615 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
3616 (verbose (required? #f)
3619 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
3620 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
3621 (predicate ,string?))))
3623 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
3624 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3626 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3627 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
3628 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
3629 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
3632 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
3634 It will be removed in a few releases.
3636 ** New syntax: lambda*
3637 ** New syntax: define*
3638 ** New syntax: define*-public
3639 ** New syntax: defmacro*
3640 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
3641 Guile now supports optional arguments.
3643 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
3644 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
3645 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
3646 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
3647 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
3649 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
3650 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
3651 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
3653 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
3655 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
3656 and examples for `lambda*':
3659 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
3661 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
3662 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
3663 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
3664 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
3665 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
3666 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
3667 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
3668 can be checked with the bound? macro.
3670 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
3672 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
3673 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
3674 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
3675 are given as keywords are bound to values.
3677 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
3678 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
3679 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
3680 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
3681 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
3682 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
3683 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
3684 and until the procedure is called.
3686 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
3688 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
3689 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
3690 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
3691 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
3692 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
3693 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
3694 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
3695 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
3696 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
3697 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
3699 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
3700 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
3701 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
3702 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
3705 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
3707 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
3708 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
3709 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
3710 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
3712 ** New syntax: and-let*
3713 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
3715 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
3716 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
3717 (<variable> <expression>)
3720 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
3721 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
3722 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
3725 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
3726 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
3727 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
3728 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
3729 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
3730 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
3731 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
3733 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
3734 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
3735 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
3736 shadow earlier bindings.
3738 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
3740 ** New sorting functions
3742 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
3743 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
3744 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
3745 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
3747 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
3748 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
3751 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
3752 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
3753 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
3755 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
3756 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
3757 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
3758 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
3760 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
3761 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
3762 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
3763 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
3764 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
3767 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
3768 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
3769 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
3770 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
3771 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
3772 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
3774 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
3775 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
3776 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
3778 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
3779 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
3780 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
3783 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
3784 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
3785 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
3787 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
3788 Added for compatibility with scsh.
3790 ** New built-in random number support
3792 *** New function: random N [STATE]
3793 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
3794 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
3795 returned have a uniform distribution.
3797 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
3798 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
3799 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
3800 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
3801 effect of the `random' operation.
3803 *** New variable: *random-state*
3804 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
3805 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
3806 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
3807 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
3808 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
3811 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
3812 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
3813 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
3814 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
3815 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
3817 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
3818 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
3819 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
3820 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
3821 initialized using SEED.
3823 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
3824 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
3825 range between 0 and 1.
3827 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
3828 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
3829 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
3830 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
3831 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
3832 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
3833 or a uniform vector of doubles.
3835 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
3836 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
3837 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
3838 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
3839 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
3840 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
3842 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
3843 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
3844 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
3845 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
3847 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
3848 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
3849 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
3850 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
3852 *** New function: random:exp STATE
3853 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
3854 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
3856 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
3858 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
3861 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
3862 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
3865 ** New function: make-guardian
3866 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
3867 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
3868 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
3869 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
3870 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
3872 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
3873 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
3874 one object if at all.
3876 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
3877 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
3878 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
3880 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
3881 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
3882 read again in last-in first-out order.
3884 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
3885 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
3887 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
3889 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
3890 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
3891 file position is used.
3893 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
3894 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
3895 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
3897 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
3898 redefined using seek.
3900 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
3901 size is not supplied.
3903 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
3904 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
3906 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
3907 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
3909 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
3911 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
3912 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
3913 and returns the contents as a single string.
3915 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
3916 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
3917 lists in serial order.
3919 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
3920 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
3921 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
3923 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
3924 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
3925 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
3926 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
3928 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
3929 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
3930 and #f if an error occured.
3932 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
3934 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
3935 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
3936 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
3937 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
3939 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
3941 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
3944 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
3946 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
3949 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3953 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
3954 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
3956 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
3957 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
3961 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3963 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
3965 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3966 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3968 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3970 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
3971 might change when we get the new module system.
3973 ** The smob interface
3975 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
3976 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
3978 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
3980 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
3984 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
3985 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
3986 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
3987 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
3988 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
3989 will be freed by the default free function.
3991 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
3992 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
3993 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3994 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3996 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
3997 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
3998 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3999 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4001 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
4003 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
4004 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
4008 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
4009 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4010 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4012 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
4013 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
4014 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4015 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4017 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
4018 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
4019 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
4021 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
4022 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
4023 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
4024 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
4026 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
4027 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
4028 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
4030 *** scm_newptob has been removed
4034 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
4036 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
4037 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
4038 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
4040 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
4041 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
4042 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
4044 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
4045 a string port's buffer.
4047 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
4048 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
4049 function pointers which together define the current random number
4050 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
4051 number library functions.
4053 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
4056 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
4057 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
4060 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
4061 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4063 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
4064 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
4066 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
4067 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
4070 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
4071 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
4072 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
4073 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
4075 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
4076 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
4077 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
4078 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
4079 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
4080 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
4081 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
4083 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
4084 by libguile and the application.
4086 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4087 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4088 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
4089 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
4091 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
4092 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
4094 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4095 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
4096 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
4098 ** Random number library functions
4099 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
4100 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
4101 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
4103 The default random state is stored in:
4105 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
4106 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
4107 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
4112 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
4114 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
4115 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
4116 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
4117 isn't a random state.
4119 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
4120 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
4122 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
4123 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
4124 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
4125 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
4127 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4128 Return 32 random bits.
4130 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4131 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
4133 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4134 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
4136 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4137 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
4139 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
4140 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4142 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
4143 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4144 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
4148 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
4150 * Changes to the distribution
4152 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
4153 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
4154 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
4157 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
4158 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
4159 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
4161 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
4162 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
4163 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
4164 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
4167 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
4168 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
4169 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
4171 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4173 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
4175 *** Function: batch-mode?
4177 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
4180 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
4182 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
4183 case has not been implemented.
4185 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
4186 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
4187 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
4190 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
4191 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
4193 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
4195 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4197 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
4199 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
4200 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
4203 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
4204 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
4205 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
4206 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
4209 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
4211 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
4212 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
4213 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
4214 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
4215 find those libraries.
4217 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
4218 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
4221 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
4223 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
4224 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
4225 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
4226 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
4228 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
4229 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
4230 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
4234 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
4236 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
4237 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
4238 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
4241 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
4242 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
4243 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
4244 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
4246 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
4247 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
4250 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
4251 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
4252 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
4253 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
4254 compiler where to find the libraries.
4256 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
4257 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
4258 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
4260 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
4261 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
4262 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
4263 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
4264 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
4268 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4270 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
4271 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
4272 internationalization support.
4274 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
4275 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
4276 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
4277 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
4278 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
4280 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
4281 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
4282 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
4283 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
4284 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
4286 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
4287 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
4288 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
4289 any GNU mirror site.
4291 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
4293 ** New function: add-history STRING
4294 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
4295 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
4296 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
4298 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
4300 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
4301 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
4302 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
4305 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
4306 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
4307 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
4309 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
4311 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
4314 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
4315 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
4318 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
4319 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
4320 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
4321 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
4322 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
4323 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
4325 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
4326 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
4327 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
4328 of the form mentioned above.
4330 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
4331 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
4332 returned in the special `rest' list.
4334 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
4335 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
4337 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
4339 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
4341 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
4343 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
4344 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
4345 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
4346 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
4347 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
4348 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
4349 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
4350 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
4353 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
4355 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
4357 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
4358 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
4361 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
4362 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
4363 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
4367 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
4368 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
4369 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
4370 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
4371 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
4372 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
4373 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
4374 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
4377 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
4379 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
4380 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
4381 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
4383 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
4385 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
4386 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
4388 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
4389 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
4390 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
4392 Why do we have this function?
4393 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
4394 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
4395 primitive, and display it differently, and
4396 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
4397 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
4400 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
4401 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
4404 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
4405 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
4406 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
4407 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
4409 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
4410 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
4413 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
4414 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
4416 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
4418 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
4419 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
4420 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
4421 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
4422 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
4423 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
4424 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
4427 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
4429 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
4430 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
4432 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
4433 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
4434 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
4435 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
4436 properly continue the print chain.
4438 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
4439 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
4440 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
4441 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
4442 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
4443 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
4444 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
4445 print-state, it is simply ignored.
4447 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
4448 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
4449 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
4450 safest to not check for these pairs.
4452 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
4453 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
4454 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
4455 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
4457 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
4459 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
4460 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
4462 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
4464 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
4466 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
4467 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
4468 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
4470 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
4471 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
4472 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
4474 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
4475 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
4476 the following functions and macros:
4478 Function: make-fluid
4480 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
4481 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
4482 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
4483 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
4484 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
4486 Function: fluid? OBJ
4488 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
4490 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
4491 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
4493 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
4494 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
4496 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
4498 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
4499 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
4500 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
4501 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
4502 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
4503 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
4504 modified by `with-fluids*'.
4506 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
4508 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
4509 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
4510 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
4511 should evaluate to a fluid.
4513 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
4515 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
4516 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
4517 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
4518 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
4519 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
4521 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
4524 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
4526 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
4528 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
4530 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
4533 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
4534 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
4535 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
4536 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
4537 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
4540 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
4541 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
4542 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
4544 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
4545 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
4546 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
4548 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
4549 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
4550 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4551 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
4553 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
4554 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
4555 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4556 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
4558 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
4559 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
4560 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
4561 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
4563 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
4564 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
4565 their revealed counts set to zero.
4567 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4568 Returns an integer file descriptor.
4570 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4571 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
4573 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4574 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
4576 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4577 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
4578 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
4580 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
4581 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
4582 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
4584 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
4585 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
4586 default environment inherited by child processes.
4588 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
4589 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
4590 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
4592 The return value is unspecified.
4594 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
4595 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
4596 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
4597 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
4598 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
4600 The return value is unspecified.
4602 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
4603 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
4611 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
4612 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
4615 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
4618 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
4619 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
4620 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
4622 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
4623 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
4624 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
4625 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
4628 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
4629 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
4631 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
4632 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
4633 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
4634 the `environ' procedure.
4636 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
4637 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
4640 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
4641 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
4643 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
4644 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
4645 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
4646 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
4648 *** procedure: times
4649 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
4650 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
4651 return a selected component:
4654 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
4658 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
4661 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
4665 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
4666 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
4670 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
4671 terminated child processes.
4673 ** Removed: list-length
4674 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
4675 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
4677 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
4679 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
4681 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
4683 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
4684 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
4685 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
4686 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
4688 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
4689 extra complexity it introduces.
4691 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
4692 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
4694 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
4695 variable to any non-empty value.
4697 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
4698 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
4700 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4702 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
4703 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
4705 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
4707 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
4708 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
4710 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
4712 ** vector handling routines
4714 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
4715 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
4716 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
4717 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
4718 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
4720 ** pair and list routines
4722 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
4725 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
4727 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
4730 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4732 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
4734 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
4735 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
4736 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
4737 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
4738 site-specific initialization code.
4740 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
4741 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
4742 initialization processes.
4744 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
4745 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
4746 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
4747 initialized properly.
4749 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
4750 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
4751 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
4753 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
4754 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
4755 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
4756 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
4757 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
4759 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
4761 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
4762 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
4763 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
4764 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
4765 objects the smob refers to get marked.
4767 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
4768 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
4769 which look like this:
4772 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
4774 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
4775 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
4778 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
4779 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
4782 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
4784 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
4785 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
4786 you will need to change your functions slightly.
4788 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
4789 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
4790 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
4791 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
4792 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
4794 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
4795 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
4797 int (*free) (SCM port);
4798 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
4799 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
4800 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
4804 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
4805 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
4806 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
4808 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
4811 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
4812 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
4813 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
4815 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
4816 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
4817 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
4820 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
4824 struct timeval *timeout);
4826 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
4827 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
4828 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
4829 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
4830 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
4831 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
4833 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
4834 scm_catch_body_t body,
4836 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
4839 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
4840 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
4841 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
4842 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
4843 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
4844 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
4846 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
4848 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
4851 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
4852 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
4853 spawning threads from application C code.
4855 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
4856 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
4857 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
4858 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
4859 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
4860 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
4862 ** Removed functions:
4864 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
4865 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
4867 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
4869 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
4870 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
4872 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
4874 ** mbstrings are now removed
4876 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
4877 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
4879 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
4881 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
4882 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
4883 their new names and arguments:
4885 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
4886 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
4887 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
4888 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
4891 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
4893 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
4895 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
4898 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
4900 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
4901 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
4902 pass a #f arg to catch.
4904 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
4906 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
4907 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
4910 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
4911 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
4912 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
4913 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
4914 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
4915 reclaim its storage.
4917 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
4918 worrying that some other function you call will call
4919 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
4920 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
4921 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
4922 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
4925 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
4927 * Changes to the distribution
4929 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
4930 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
4933 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
4934 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
4936 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4937 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4939 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
4941 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
4942 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
4943 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
4945 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4947 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
4948 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
4949 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
4950 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
4951 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
4952 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
4954 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
4955 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
4956 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
4959 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
4960 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
4961 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
4962 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
4964 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
4965 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
4966 libraries to your link command:
4968 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
4969 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
4970 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
4971 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
4973 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
4974 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
4975 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
4977 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4979 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
4980 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
4983 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
4985 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
4986 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
4987 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
4988 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
4989 searched is system dependent.
4991 (dynamic-object? VAL)
4993 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
4995 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
4997 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
4998 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
5000 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5002 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
5003 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
5004 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
5005 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
5006 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
5009 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5011 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
5012 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
5013 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
5014 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
5015 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
5017 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
5019 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
5020 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
5022 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
5024 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
5025 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
5026 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
5029 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
5031 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
5032 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
5033 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
5034 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
5036 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
5037 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
5039 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
5041 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
5042 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
5044 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
5046 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
5047 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
5055 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
5057 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
5058 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
5059 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
5060 a more informative way.
5062 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
5063 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
5064 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
5065 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
5066 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
5067 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
5069 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
5070 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
5073 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
5074 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
5075 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
5078 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
5079 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
5080 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
5081 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
5082 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
5083 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
5085 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
5086 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
5087 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
5088 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
5091 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
5092 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
5093 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
5094 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
5095 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
5096 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
5098 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
5099 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
5100 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
5101 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
5102 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
5104 *** regexp functions
5106 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
5107 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
5108 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
5110 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
5111 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
5112 with SCSH regular expressions.
5114 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
5115 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
5116 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
5117 position of STR at which to begin matching.
5119 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
5120 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
5121 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
5122 `string-match' returns `#f'.
5124 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
5125 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
5126 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
5127 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
5128 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
5129 match strings against the compiled regexp.
5131 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
5132 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
5133 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
5134 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
5135 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
5137 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5139 **** Constant: regexp/extended
5140 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
5141 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
5142 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
5144 **** Constant: regexp/icase
5145 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
5146 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
5148 **** Constant: regexp/newline
5149 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
5151 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
5154 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
5155 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5156 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
5158 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
5159 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5160 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
5162 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
5163 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
5164 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
5165 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
5166 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
5169 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5171 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
5172 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
5173 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
5174 used when different portions of a string are passed to
5175 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
5176 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
5178 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
5179 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
5180 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
5182 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
5183 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
5186 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
5187 and replace them with the contents of another string.
5189 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
5190 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
5191 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
5192 may be one of the following arguments:
5194 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
5196 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
5198 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
5199 the regexp match is written.
5201 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
5202 following the regexp match is written.
5204 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
5205 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
5208 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
5209 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
5210 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
5211 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
5212 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
5213 which should be matched against this regular expression.
5215 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
5218 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
5219 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
5220 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
5221 written out to PORT.
5223 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
5224 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
5225 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
5226 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
5227 will return after processing a single match.
5229 *** Match Structures
5231 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
5232 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
5233 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
5234 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
5235 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
5236 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
5239 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
5240 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
5241 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
5242 information about the original target string that was matched against a
5243 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
5245 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
5246 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
5247 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
5249 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
5250 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
5251 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
5252 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
5253 number N did not match, return `#f'.
5255 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
5256 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
5258 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
5259 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
5261 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
5262 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
5264 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
5265 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
5267 **** Function: match:count MATCH
5268 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
5269 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
5270 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
5272 **** Function: match:string MATCH
5273 Return the original TARGET string.
5275 *** Backslash Escapes
5277 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
5278 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
5279 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
5280 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
5281 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
5282 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
5284 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
5285 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
5286 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
5287 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
5288 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
5289 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
5290 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
5291 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
5293 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
5294 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
5295 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
5296 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
5297 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
5298 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
5299 each match a single backslash in the target string.
5301 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
5302 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
5303 return the resulting string.
5305 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
5306 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
5307 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
5308 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
5309 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
5310 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
5311 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
5312 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
5313 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
5314 translated to the single character `*'.
5316 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
5317 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
5318 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
5319 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
5320 consecutive backslashes:
5322 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
5324 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
5325 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
5326 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
5328 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
5329 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
5330 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
5331 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
5332 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
5333 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
5335 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
5337 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
5338 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
5339 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
5340 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
5341 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
5342 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
5343 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
5344 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
5345 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
5346 cumbersome escape syntax.
5348 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5350 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5352 * Changes to system call interfaces:
5354 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
5357 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
5359 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
5361 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
5364 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
5365 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
5366 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
5367 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
5368 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
5370 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
5371 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
5372 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
5373 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
5374 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
5375 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
5376 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
5379 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
5380 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
5381 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
5384 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
5385 `force-output' on every port open for output.
5387 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
5388 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
5389 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
5390 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
5391 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
5392 installed, you can say:
5394 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
5397 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5399 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
5400 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
5401 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
5402 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
5403 new dynamic roots and threads.
5406 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
5408 * Changes to the distribution.
5410 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
5412 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
5413 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
5414 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
5415 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
5416 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
5417 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
5418 programming language. These are packaged together because the
5419 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
5421 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
5424 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
5425 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
5430 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5432 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
5433 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
5435 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
5436 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
5437 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
5438 the (command-line) function.
5439 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
5440 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
5441 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
5443 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
5444 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
5445 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
5446 command line arguments
5447 -ds do -s script at this point
5448 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
5449 -h, --help display this help and exit
5450 -v, --version display version information and exit
5451 \ read arguments from following script lines
5453 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
5454 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
5456 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5459 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5463 (main (command-line))
5465 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
5467 ekko a speckled gecko
5469 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
5470 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
5471 following list of command-line arguments:
5473 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
5475 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
5476 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
5477 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
5478 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
5479 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5481 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
5483 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
5485 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
5486 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
5489 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
5490 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
5491 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
5492 SCSH) for circumventing them.
5494 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
5495 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
5496 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
5497 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
5499 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
5503 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5507 If the user invokes this script as follows:
5509 ekko a speckled gecko
5511 Unix expands this into
5513 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
5515 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
5516 read from the second line of the script, producing:
5518 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
5520 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
5521 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5523 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
5524 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
5525 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
5526 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
5527 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
5528 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
5529 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
5530 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
5531 it only terminates the argument list.)
5532 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
5533 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
5534 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
5535 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
5536 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
5537 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
5538 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
5539 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
5541 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5543 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
5544 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
5545 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
5546 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
5547 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
5549 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
5550 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
5551 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
5553 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
5555 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
5556 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
5557 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
5558 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
5561 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
5562 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5563 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5565 * Changes to Scheme functions
5567 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
5568 and disabled by default.
5570 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
5571 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
5572 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
5573 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
5575 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
5577 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
5579 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
5580 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
5582 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
5583 (read-set! keywords #f)
5585 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
5586 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
5587 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
5590 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
5591 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
5592 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
5595 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
5596 support for Scheme functions.
5598 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5599 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
5600 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
5601 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
5604 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5605 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
5606 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
5609 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
5610 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
5611 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
5614 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
5615 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
5616 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
5617 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
5618 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
5619 display the result as a prompt.
5620 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
5622 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
5623 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
5624 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
5627 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
5628 procedure of zero arguments.
5630 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
5631 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
5632 argument is bound in the current module.
5634 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
5635 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
5636 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
5637 public bindings into the current module.
5639 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
5640 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
5642 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
5643 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
5645 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
5646 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
5648 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
5649 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
5651 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
5652 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
5654 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
5655 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
5656 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
5657 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
5658 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
5660 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
5661 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
5662 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
5663 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
5665 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
5668 ** Changes to I/O functions
5670 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
5671 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
5672 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
5674 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
5675 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
5676 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
5678 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
5679 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
5681 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
5682 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
5683 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
5684 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
5686 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
5688 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
5689 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
5691 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
5692 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
5693 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
5694 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
5695 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
5698 'trim omit delimiter from result
5699 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
5700 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
5701 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
5703 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
5705 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
5706 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
5708 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
5709 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
5710 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
5711 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
5712 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
5714 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
5715 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
5716 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
5718 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
5719 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
5720 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
5721 above, and defaults to 'peek.
5723 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
5724 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
5726 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
5727 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
5729 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
5731 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
5732 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
5733 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
5734 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
5735 a delimiting character.
5736 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
5738 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
5739 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
5740 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
5741 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
5742 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
5743 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
5745 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
5746 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
5748 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
5749 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
5750 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
5752 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
5753 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
5754 the array to read and write.
5756 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
5757 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
5760 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
5762 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
5765 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
5766 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
5767 Values for COMMAND are:
5769 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
5770 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
5771 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
5772 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
5773 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
5774 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
5775 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
5776 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
5778 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
5780 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
5781 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
5782 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
5783 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
5784 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
5785 corresponding return set will be the same.
5787 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
5790 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
5791 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
5792 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
5793 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
5794 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
5795 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
5796 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
5797 special file being created.
5799 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
5800 clashing with various SCSH forks.
5802 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
5803 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
5804 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
5805 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
5806 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
5807 and originating address.
5809 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
5810 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
5811 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
5813 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
5816 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
5817 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
5820 (status:exit-val STATUS)
5821 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
5822 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
5823 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
5824 this function returns #f.
5826 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
5827 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
5828 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
5831 (status:term-sig STATUS)
5832 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
5833 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
5836 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
5837 a valid STATUS value.
5839 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
5841 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
5842 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
5844 Component Accessor Setter
5845 ========================= ============ ============
5846 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
5847 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
5848 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
5849 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
5850 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
5851 year tm:year set-tm:year
5852 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
5853 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
5854 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
5855 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
5856 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
5858 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
5859 describing the host system:
5862 ============================================== ================
5863 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
5864 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
5865 release level of the operating system utsname:release
5866 version level of the operating system utsname:version
5867 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
5869 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
5870 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
5871 system's user database:
5874 ====================== =================
5875 user name passwd:name
5876 user password passwd:passwd
5879 real name passwd:gecos
5880 home directory passwd:dir
5881 shell program passwd:shell
5883 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
5884 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
5885 system's group database:
5888 ======================= ============
5889 group name group:name
5890 group password group:passwd
5892 group members group:mem
5894 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
5895 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
5899 ========================= ===============
5900 official name of host hostent:name
5901 alias list hostent:aliases
5902 host address type hostent:addrtype
5903 length of address hostent:length
5904 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
5906 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
5907 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
5911 ========================= ===============
5912 official name of net netent:name
5913 alias list netent:aliases
5914 net number type netent:addrtype
5915 net number netent:net
5917 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
5918 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
5922 ========================= ===============
5923 official protocol name protoent:name
5924 alias list protoent:aliases
5925 protocol number protoent:proto
5927 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
5928 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
5932 ========================= ===============
5933 official service name servent:name
5934 alias list servent:aliases
5935 port number servent:port
5936 protocol to use servent:proto
5938 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
5939 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
5942 ======================================== ===============
5943 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
5944 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
5945 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
5946 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
5948 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
5949 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
5950 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
5952 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
5953 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
5955 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
5956 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
5958 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
5959 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
5961 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
5963 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
5965 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
5966 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
5967 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
5969 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
5970 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
5971 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
5972 return the remaining characters as a string.
5974 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
5975 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
5976 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
5978 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
5980 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5982 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
5985 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
5988 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
5989 and returns the array
5991 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
5992 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
5993 the user to interpret the data both ways.
5995 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5997 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
5998 symbol's value from C code:
6000 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
6001 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
6002 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
6003 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
6005 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
6006 without assigning them a value.
6008 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
6009 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
6010 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
6012 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
6013 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
6014 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
6016 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
6017 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
6019 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
6020 doesn't actually care about that.
6022 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
6023 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
6024 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
6026 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
6027 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
6028 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
6029 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
6030 which we have just created and initialized.
6032 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
6033 should one occur. We call it like this:
6034 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
6036 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
6037 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
6038 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
6039 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
6040 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
6041 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
6044 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
6045 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
6046 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
6047 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
6048 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
6049 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
6050 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
6053 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
6054 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
6055 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
6056 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
6057 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
6060 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
6061 scm_internal_catch, except:
6063 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
6064 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
6065 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
6066 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
6069 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
6070 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
6071 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
6073 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
6074 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
6075 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
6076 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
6079 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
6080 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
6081 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
6083 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
6084 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
6085 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
6086 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
6087 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
6089 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
6090 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
6091 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
6093 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
6094 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
6095 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
6097 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
6098 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
6100 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
6101 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
6102 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
6105 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
6106 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
6107 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
6108 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
6109 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
6110 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
6111 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
6114 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
6115 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
6117 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
6118 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
6119 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
6120 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
6121 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
6124 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
6125 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
6127 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
6128 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
6131 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
6132 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
6134 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6137 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
6138 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
6139 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
6140 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
6141 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
6142 given the following arguments:
6144 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6146 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
6148 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
6150 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6153 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
6154 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
6155 command-line arguments.
6157 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
6158 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
6159 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
6160 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
6161 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
6162 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
6165 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6168 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
6169 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
6171 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
6172 rearranged slightly. They are now:
6174 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6175 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6176 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
6177 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
6179 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6180 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6182 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6183 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
6184 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6185 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
6187 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6188 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6190 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
6191 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
6193 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
6195 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
6196 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
6197 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
6200 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
6201 returns a port instead of an FD object.
6203 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
6204 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
6209 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
6212 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
6214 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
6215 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
6216 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
6217 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
6219 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
6221 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
6223 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
6224 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
6225 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
6226 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
6227 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
6228 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
6229 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
6230 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
6231 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
6232 for more information.
6234 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
6235 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
6237 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
6238 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
6239 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
6240 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
6241 following two lines at the top of the file:
6243 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6246 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
6247 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
6248 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
6250 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
6252 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6254 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
6257 (display (car args))
6258 (if (pair? (cdr args))
6260 (loop (cdr args)))))
6263 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
6264 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
6265 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
6266 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
6267 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
6268 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
6272 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
6275 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
6278 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
6280 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
6281 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
6282 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
6283 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
6284 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
6287 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
6288 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
6289 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
6290 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
6291 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
6294 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
6297 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
6298 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
6299 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
6302 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
6303 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
6304 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
6306 to see a backtrace, and
6307 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
6308 to see them by default.
6312 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
6314 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
6316 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
6317 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
6320 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
6321 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
6322 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
6323 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
6326 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
6327 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
6328 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
6329 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
6330 functions which inspired them.
6332 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
6333 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
6337 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
6339 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
6341 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
6342 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
6345 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
6346 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
6347 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
6349 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
6350 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
6351 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
6352 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
6353 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
6355 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
6357 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
6358 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
6359 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
6362 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
6365 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
6367 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
6368 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
6369 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
6370 above should serve their purposes.
6372 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
6373 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
6374 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
6375 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
6377 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
6380 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
6381 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
6382 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
6383 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
6385 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
6386 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
6387 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
6388 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
6390 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
6391 for the `read' function.
6394 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
6395 to that of `integer?'.
6397 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
6398 use the R4RS names for these functions.
6400 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
6401 it simply returns the object's property list.
6403 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
6404 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
6405 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
6406 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
6408 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
6410 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
6413 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
6415 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
6416 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
6418 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
6420 void (*main_func) (),
6423 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
6424 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
6425 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
6426 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
6427 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
6429 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
6430 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
6431 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
6432 know which arguments have been processed.
6434 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
6435 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
6436 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
6437 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
6438 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
6440 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
6441 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
6442 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
6443 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
6444 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
6445 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
6446 people from making that mistake.
6448 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
6449 convenient ways to override these when desired.
6451 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
6453 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
6457 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
6460 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
6461 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
6462 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
6463 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
6466 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
6467 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
6468 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
6469 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
6472 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
6473 have been added to the Guile library.
6475 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
6476 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
6477 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
6480 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
6481 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
6482 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
6484 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
6485 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
6486 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
6487 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
6488 argument from the list.
6491 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
6494 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
6495 null-terminated string, and returns it.
6497 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
6498 to a Scheme port object.
6500 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
6501 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
6506 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
6508 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
6509 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
6510 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
6511 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
6512 code as a special datatype.
6514 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
6515 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
6516 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
6517 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
6518 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
6521 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
6522 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
6523 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
6524 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
6525 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
6527 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
6530 Copyright information:
6532 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6534 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
6535 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
6536 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
6537 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
6539 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
6540 of this document, or of portions of it,
6541 under the above conditions, provided also that they
6542 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
6547 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"