1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
8 (During the 1.9 series, we will keep an incremental NEWS for the latest
9 prerelease, and a full NEWS corresponding to 1.8 -> 2.0.)
11 Changes in 1.9.4 (since the 1.9.3 prerelease):
13 ** Guile now adds its install prefix to the LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH
15 Users may now install Guile to nonstandard prefixes and just run
16 `/path/to/bin/guile', instead of also having to set LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH to
17 include `/path/to/lib'.
19 ** Dynamically loadable extensions may be placed in a Guile-specific path
21 Before, Guile only searched the system library paths for extensions
22 (e.g. /usr/lib), which meant that the names of Guile extensions had to
23 be globally unique. Installing them to a Guile-specific extensions
24 directory is cleaner. Use `pkg-config --variable=extensionsdir
25 guile-2.0' to get the location of the extensions directory.
27 ** The programmatic `compile' procedure compiles its expression in a
28 fresh module, by default
30 This should make the results of `compile' more predictable. Users may
31 specify a specific module in which to compile via the `#:env' keyword
32 argument to `compile' (and `compile-file').
34 ** `compile-file' preserves expansion-time side-effects to `current-reader'
36 User modules may now modify the `current-reader' fluid at expansion
37 time, usually within an eval-when, and those modifications will remain
38 in place when compiling subsequent forms in the file.
40 See "The Scheme Compiler" in the Guile manual for more details.
42 ** Guile's Emacs integration is now more keyboard-friendly
44 Backtraces may now be disclosed with the keyboard in addition to the
47 ** Compile-time warnings: -Wunbound-variable
49 Guile can warn about potentially unbound free variables. Pass the
50 -Wunbound-variable on the `guile-tools compile' command line, or add
51 `#:warnings '(unbound-variable)' to your `compile' or `compile-file'
54 ** Wide character/string support in locale-specific character/string
57 The `(ice-9 i18n)' functions (`string-locale<?', etc.) now work
58 correctly on wide strings as well. This should finish off the remaining
59 Unicode support patches. Please send any Unicode bug reports to
64 `scm_primitive_load_path' now has the signature it did in 1.8.
65 `scm_array_p' does as well, reverting an incompatible change made in
66 1.9.3. Finally, Guile now has the same ABI when built with or without
67 threads, something that should make Debian users happy.
69 ** And of course, the usual collection of bugfixes
71 Interested users should see the ChangeLog for more information.
75 Changes in 1.9.x (since the 1.8.x series):
77 * New modules (see the manual for details)
79 ** `(srfi srfi-18)', more sophisticated multithreading support
80 ** `(ice-9 i18n)', internationalization support
81 ** `(rnrs bytevector)', the R6RS bytevector API
82 ** `(rnrs io ports)', a subset of the R6RS I/O port API
83 ** `(system xref)', a cross-referencing facility (FIXME undocumented)
85 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
87 ** Guile now can compile Scheme to bytecode for a custom virtual machine.
89 Compiled code loads much faster than Scheme source code, and runs around
90 3 or 4 times as fast, generating much less garbage in the process.
92 ** The stack limit is now initialized from the environment.
94 If getrlimit(2) is available and a stack limit is set, Guile will set
95 its stack limit to 80% of the rlimit. Otherwise the limit is 160000
96 words, a four-fold increase from the earlier default limit.
98 ** New environment variables: GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH,
99 GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH
101 GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is for compiled files what GUILE_LOAD_PATH is
102 for source files. It is a different path, however, because compiled
103 files are architecture-specific. GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is like
106 ** New read-eval-print loop (REPL) implementation
108 Running Guile with no arguments drops the user into the new REPL. While
109 it is self-documenting to an extent, the new REPL has not yet been
110 documented in the manual. This will be fixed before 2.0.
112 ** New `guile-tools' commands: `compile', `disassemble'
114 Pass the `--help' command-line option to these commands for more
117 ** Guile now adds its install prefix to the LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH
119 Users may now install Guile to nonstandard prefixes and just run
120 `/path/to/bin/guile', instead of also having to set LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH to
121 include `/path/to/lib'.
123 ** Guile's Emacs integration is now more keyboard-friendly
125 Backtraces may now be disclosed with the keyboard in addition to the
128 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
130 ** Procedure removed: `the-environment'
132 This procedure was part of the interpreter's execution model, and does
133 not apply to the compiler.
135 ** Files loaded with `primitive-load-path' will now be compiled
138 If a compiled .go file corresponding to a .scm file is not found or is
139 not fresh, the .scm file will be compiled on the fly, and the resulting
140 .go file stored away. An advisory note will be printed on the console.
142 Note that this mechanism depends on preservation of the .scm and .go
143 modification times; if the .scm or .go files are moved after
144 installation, care should be taken to preserve their original
147 Autocompiled files will be stored in the $XDG_CACHE_HOME/guile/ccache
148 directory, where $XDG_CACHE_HOME defaults to ~/.cache. This directory
149 will be created if needed.
151 To inhibit autocompilation, set the GUILE_AUTO_COMPILE environment
152 variable to 0, or pass --no-autocompile on the Guile command line.
154 Note that there is currently a bug here: automatic compilation will
155 sometimes be attempted when it shouldn't.
157 For example, the old (lang elisp) modules are meant to be interpreted,
158 not compiled. This bug will be fixed before 2.0. FIXME 2.0: Should say
159 something here about module-transformer called for compile.
161 ** Files loaded with `load' will now be compiled automatically.
163 As with files loaded via `primitive-load-path', `load' will also compile
164 its target if autocompilation is enabled, and a fresh compiled file is
167 There are two points of difference to note, however. First, `load' does
168 not search `GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH' for the file; it only looks in the
169 autocompilation directory, normally a subdirectory of ~/.cache/guile.
171 Secondly, autocompilation also applies to files loaded via the -l
172 command-line argument -- so the user may experience a slight slowdown
173 the first time they run a Guile script, as the script is autocompiled.
175 ** New POSIX procedures: `getrlimit' and `setrlimit'
177 Note however that the interface of these functions is likely to change
178 in the next prerelease.
180 ** New procedure in `(oops goops)': `method-formals'
182 ** BUG: (procedure-property func 'arity) does not work on compiled
185 This will be fixed one way or another before 2.0.
187 ** New procedures in (ice-9 session): `add-value-help-handler!',
188 `remove-value-help-handler!', `add-name-help-handler!'
189 `remove-name-help-handler!', `procedure-arguments',
191 The value and name help handlers provide some minimal extensibility to
192 the help interface. Guile-lib's `(texinfo reflection)' uses them, for
193 example, to make stexinfo help documentation available. See those
194 procedures' docstrings for more information.
196 `procedure-arguments' describes the arguments that a procedure can take,
197 combining arity and formals. For example:
199 (procedure-arguments resolve-interface)
200 => ((required . (name)) (rest . args))
202 Additionally, `module-commentary' is now publically exported from
205 ** Deprecated: `procedure->memoizing-macro', `procedure->syntax'
207 These procedures will not work with syncase expansion, and indeed are
208 not used in the normal course of Guile. They are still used by the old
209 Emacs Lisp support, however.
211 ** New language: ECMAScript
213 Guile now ships with one other high-level language supported,
214 ECMAScript. The goal is to support all of version 3.1 of the standard,
215 but not all of the libraries are there yet. This support is not yet
216 documented; ask on the mailing list if you are interested.
218 ** New language: Brainfuck
220 Brainfuck is a toy language that closely models Turing machines. Guile's
221 brainfuck compiler is meant to be an example of implementing other
222 languages. See the manual for details, or
223 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck for more information about the
224 Brainfuck language itself.
226 ** Defmacros may now have docstrings.
228 Indeed, any macro may have a docstring. `object-documentation' from
229 `(ice-9 documentation)' may be used to retrieve the docstring, once you
230 have a macro value -- but see the above note about first-class macros.
231 Docstrings are associated with the syntax transformer procedures.
233 ** The psyntax expander now knows how to interpret the @ and @@ special
236 ** The psyntax expander is now hygienic with respect to modules.
238 Free variables in a macro are scoped in the module that the macro was
239 defined in, not in the module the macro is used in. For example, code
242 (define-module (foo) #:export (bar))
243 (define (helper x) ...)
245 (syntax-rules () ((_ x) (helper x))))
247 (define-module (baz) #:use-module (foo))
250 It used to be you had to export `helper' from `(foo)' as well.
251 Thankfully, this has been fixed.
253 ** New function, `procedure-module'
255 While useful on its own, `procedure-module' is used by psyntax on syntax
256 transformers to determine the module in which to scope introduced
259 ** `eval-case' has been deprecated, and replaced by `eval-when'.
261 The semantics of `eval-when' are easier to understand. It is still
262 missing documentation, however.
264 ** Guile is now more strict about prohibiting definitions in expression
267 Although previous versions of Guile accepted it, the following
268 expression is not valid, in R5RS or R6RS:
270 (if test (define foo 'bar) (define foo 'baz))
272 In this specific case, it would be better to do:
274 (define foo (if test 'bar 'baz))
276 It is certainly possible to circumvent this resriction with e.g.
277 `(module-define! (current-module) 'foo 'baz)'. We would appreciate
278 feedback about this change (a consequence of using psyntax as the
279 default expander), and may choose to revisit this situation before 2.0
280 in response to user feedback.
282 ** Defmacros must now produce valid Scheme expressions.
284 It used to be that defmacros could unquote in Scheme values, as a way of
285 supporting partial evaluation, and avoiding some hygiene issues. For
288 (define (helper x) ...)
289 (define-macro (foo bar)
292 Assuming this macro is in the `(baz)' module, the direct translation of
295 (define (helper x) ...)
296 (define-macro (foo bar)
297 `((@@ (baz) helper) ,bar))
299 Of course, one could just use a hygienic macro instead:
303 ((_ bar) (helper bar))))
305 ** Guile's psyntax now supports docstrings and internal definitions.
307 The following Scheme is not strictly legal:
314 However its intent is fairly clear. Guile interprets "bar" to be the
315 docstring of `foo', and the definition of `baz' is still in definition
318 ** Macros need to be defined before their first use.
320 It used to be that with lazy memoization, this might work:
324 (define-macro (ref x) x)
327 But now, the body of `foo' is interpreted to mean a call to the toplevel
328 `ref' function, instead of a macro expansion. The solution is to define
329 macros before code that uses them.
331 ** Functions needed by macros at expand-time need to be present at
334 For example, this code will work at the REPL:
336 (define (double-helper x) (* x x))
337 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
338 (double-literal 2) => 4
340 But it will not work when a file is compiled, because the definition of
341 `double-helper' is not present at expand-time. The solution is to wrap
342 the definition of `double-helper' in `eval-when':
344 (eval-when (load compile eval)
345 (define (double-helper x) (* x x)))
346 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
347 (double-literal 2) => 4
349 See the (currently missing) documentation for eval-when for more
352 ** New variable, %pre-modules-transformer
354 Need to document this one some more.
356 ** Temporarily removed functions: `macroexpand', `macroexpand-1'
358 `macroexpand' will be added back before 2.0. It is unclear how to
359 implement `macroexpand-1' with syntax-case, though PLT Scheme does prove
362 ** New reader macros: #' #` #, #,@
364 These macros translate, respectively, to `syntax', `quasisyntax',
365 `unsyntax', and `unsyntax-splicing'. See the R6RS for more information.
366 These reader macros may be overridden by `read-hash-extend'.
368 ** Incompatible change to #'
370 Guile did have a #' hash-extension, by default, which just returned the
371 subsequent datum: #'foo => foo. In the unlikely event that anyone
372 actually used this, this behavior may be reinstated via the
373 `read-hash-extend' mechanism.
375 ** Scheme expresssions may be commented out with #;
377 #; comments out an entire expression. See SRFI-62 or the R6RS for more
380 ** `make-stack' with a tail-called procedural narrowing argument no longer
381 works (with compiled procedures)
383 It used to be the case that a captured stack could be narrowed to select
384 calls only up to or from a certain procedure, even if that procedure
385 already tail-called another procedure. This was because the debug
386 information from the original procedure was kept on the stack.
388 Now with the new compiler, the stack only contains active frames from
389 the current continuation. A narrow to a procedure that is not in the
390 stack will result in an empty stack. To fix this, narrow to a procedure
391 that is active in the current continuation, or narrow to a specific
392 number of stack frames.
394 ** backtraces through compiled procedures only show procedures that are
395 active in the current continuation
397 Similarly to the previous issue, backtraces in compiled code may be
398 different from backtraces in interpreted code. There are no semantic
399 differences, however. Please mail bug-guile@gnu.org if you see any
400 deficiencies with Guile's backtraces.
402 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case macros now propagate source information
403 through to the expanded code
405 This should result in better backtraces.
407 ** The currying behavior of `define' has been removed.
409 Before, `(define ((f a) b) (* a b))' would translate to
411 (define f (lambda (a) (lambda (b) (* a b))))
413 Now a syntax error is signaled, as this syntax is not supported by
414 default. If there is sufficient demand, this syntax can be supported
417 ** All modules have names now
419 Before, you could have anonymous modules: modules without names. Now,
420 because of hygiene and macros, all modules have names. If a module was
421 created without a name, the first time `module-name' is called on it, a
422 fresh name will be lazily generated for it.
424 ** Many syntax errors have different texts now
426 Syntax errors still throw to the `syntax-error' key, but the arguments
427 are often different now. Perhaps in the future, Guile will switch to
428 using standard SRFI-35 conditions.
430 ** Returning multiple values to compiled code will silently truncate the
431 values to the expected number
433 For example, the interpreter would raise an error evaluating the form,
434 `(+ (values 1 2) (values 3 4))', because it would see the operands as
435 being two compound "values" objects, to which `+' does not apply.
437 The compiler, on the other hand, receives multiple values on the stack,
438 not as a compound object. Given that it must check the number of values
439 anyway, if too many values are provided for a continuation, it chooses
440 to truncate those values, effectively evaluating `(+ 1 3)' instead.
442 The idea is that the semantics that the compiler implements is more
443 intuitive, and the use of the interpreter will fade out with time.
444 This behavior is allowed both by the R5RS and the R6RS.
446 ** Multiple values in compiled code are not represented by compound
449 This change may manifest itself in the following situation:
451 (let ((val (foo))) (do-something) val)
453 In the interpreter, if `foo' returns multiple values, multiple values
454 are produced from the `let' expression. In the compiler, those values
455 are truncated to the first value, and that first value is returned. In
456 the compiler, if `foo' returns no values, an error will be raised, while
457 the interpreter would proceed.
459 Both of these behaviors are allowed by R5RS and R6RS. The compiler's
460 behavior is more correct, however. If you wish to preserve a potentially
461 multiply-valued return, you will need to set up a multiple-value
462 continuation, using `call-with-values'.
464 ** Defmacros are now implemented in terms of syntax-case.
466 The practical ramification of this is that the `defmacro?' predicate has
467 been removed, along with `defmacro-transformer', `macro-table',
468 `xformer-table', `assert-defmacro?!', `set-defmacro-transformer!' and
469 `defmacro:transformer'. This is because defmacros are simply macros. If
470 any of these procedures provided useful facilities to you, we encourage
471 you to contact the Guile developers.
473 ** psyntax is now the default expander
475 Scheme code is now expanded by default by the psyntax hygienic macro
476 expander. Expansion is performed completely before compilation or
479 Notably, syntax errors will be signalled before interpretation begins.
480 In the past, many syntax errors were only detected at runtime if the
481 code in question was memoized.
483 As part of its expansion, psyntax renames all lexically-bound
484 identifiers. Original identifier names are preserved and given to the
485 compiler, but the interpreter will see the renamed variables, e.g.,
486 `x432' instead of `x'.
488 Note that the psyntax that Guile uses is a fork, as Guile already had
489 modules before incompatible modules were added to psyntax -- about 10
490 years ago! Thus there are surely a number of bugs that have been fixed
491 in psyntax since then. If you find one, please notify bug-guile@gnu.org.
493 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case are available by default.
495 There is no longer any need to import the `(ice-9 syncase)' module
496 (which is now deprecated). The expander may be invoked directly via
497 `sc-expand', though it is normally searched for via the current module
500 Also, the helper routines for syntax-case are available in the default
501 environment as well: `syntax->datum', `datum->syntax',
502 `bound-identifier=?', `free-identifier=?', `generate-temporaries',
503 `identifier?', and `syntax-violation'. See the R6RS for documentation.
505 ** Lexical bindings introduced by hygienic macros may not be referenced
506 by nonhygienic macros.
508 If a lexical binding is introduced by a hygienic macro, it may not be
509 referenced by a nonhygienic macro. For example, this works:
512 (define-macro (bind-x val body)
513 `(let ((x ,val)) ,body))
514 (define-macro (ref x)
521 (define-syntax bind-x
523 ((_ val body) (let ((x val)) body))))
524 (define-macro (ref x)
528 It is not normal to run into this situation with existing code. However,
529 as code is ported over from defmacros to syntax-case, it is possible to
530 run into situations like this. In the future, Guile will probably port
531 its `while' macro to syntax-case, which makes this issue one to know
534 ** Macros may no longer be referenced as first-class values.
536 In the past, you could evaluate e.g. `if', and get its macro value. Now,
537 expanding this form raises a syntax error.
539 Macros still /exist/ as first-class values, but they must be
540 /referenced/ via the module system, e.g. `(module-ref (current-module)
543 This decision may be revisited before the 2.0 release. Feedback welcome
544 to guile-devel@gnu.org (subscription required) or bug-guile@gnu.org (no
545 subscription required).
547 ** Unicode characters
549 Unicode characters may be entered in octal format via e.g. `#\454', or
550 created via (integer->char 300). A hex external representation will
551 probably be introduced at some point.
555 Internally, strings are now represented either in the `latin-1'
556 encoding, one byte per character, or in UTF-32, with four bytes per
557 character. Strings manage their own allocation, switching if needed.
559 Extended characters may be written in a literal string using the
560 hexadecimal escapes `\xXX', `\uXXXX', or `\UXXXXXX', for 8-bit, 16-bit,
561 or 24-bit codepoints, respectively, or entered directly in the native
562 encoding of the port on which the string is read.
566 One may now use U+03BB (GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMBDA) as an identifier.
568 ** Support for non-ASCII source code files
570 The default reader now handles source code files for some of the
571 non-ASCII character encodings, such as UTF-8. A non-ASCII source file
572 should have an encoding declaration near the top of the file. Also,
573 there is a new function, `file-encoding', that scans a port for a coding
574 declaration. See the section of the manual entitled, "Character Encoding
577 The pre-1.9.3 reader handled 8-bit clean but otherwise unspecified source
578 code. This use is now discouraged.
580 ** Support for locale transcoding when reading from and writing to ports
582 Ports now have an associated character encoding, and port read and write
583 operations do conversion to and from locales automatically. Ports also
584 have an associated strategy for how to deal with locale conversion
587 See the documentation in the manual for the four new support functions,
588 `set-port-encoding!', `port-encoding', `set-port-conversion-strategy!',
589 and `port-conversion-strategy'.
591 ** String and SRFI-13 functions can operate on Unicode strings
593 ** Unicode support for SRFI-14 character sets
595 The default character sets are no longer locale dependent and contain
596 characters from the whole Unicode range. There is a new predefined
597 character set, `char-set:designated', which contains all assigned
598 Unicode characters. There is a new debugging function, `%char-set-dump'.
600 ** Character functions operate on Unicode characters
602 `char-upcase' and `char-downcase' use default Unicode casing rules.
603 Character comparisons such as `char<?' and `char-ci<?' now sort based on
606 ** Global variables `scm_charnames' and `scm_charnums' are removed
608 These variables contained the names of control characters and were
609 used when writing characters. While these were global, they were
610 never intended to be public API. They have been replaced with private
613 ** EBCDIC support is removed
615 There was an EBCDIC compile flag that altered some of the character
616 processing. It appeared that full EBCDIC support was never completed
617 and was unmaintained.
619 ** Compile-time warnings: -Wunbound-variable
621 Guile can warn about potentially unbound free variables. Pass the
622 -Wunbound-variable on the `guile-tools compile' command line, or add
623 `#:warnings '(unbound-variable)' to your `compile' or `compile-file'
626 ** New macro type: syncase-macro
628 XXX Need to decide whether to document this for 2.0, probably should:
629 make-syncase-macro, make-extended-syncase-macro, macro-type,
630 syncase-macro-type, syncase-macro-binding
632 ** A new `memoize-symbol' evaluator trap has been added.
634 This trap can be used for efficiently implementing a Scheme code
637 ** Duplicate bindings among used modules are resolved lazily.
639 This slightly improves program startup times.
641 ** New thread cancellation and thread cleanup API
643 See `cancel-thread', `set-thread-cleanup!', and `thread-cleanup'.
645 ** Fix bad interaction between `false-if-exception' and stack-call.
647 Exceptions thrown by `false-if-exception' were erronously causing the
648 stack to be saved, causing later errors to show the incorrectly-saved
649 backtrace. This has been fixed.
651 ** New global variables: %load-compiled-path, %load-compiled-extensions
653 These are analogous to %load-path and %load-extensions.
655 ** New procedure, `make-promise'
657 `(make-promise (lambda () foo))' is equivalent to `(delay foo)'.
659 ** `defined?' may accept a module as its second argument
661 Previously it only accepted internal structures from the evaluator.
663 ** New entry into %guile-build-info: `ccachedir'
665 ** Fix bug in `module-bound?'.
667 `module-bound?' was returning true if a module did have a local
668 variable, but one that was unbound, but another imported module bound
669 the variable. This was an error, and was fixed.
671 ** `(ice-9 syncase)' has been deprecated.
673 As syntax-case is available by default, importing `(ice-9 syncase)' has
674 no effect, and will trigger a deprecation warning.
676 ** New readline history functions
678 The (ice-9 readline) module now provides add-history, read-history,
679 write-history and clear-history, which wrap the corresponding GNU
680 History library functions.
682 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures:
683 dimensions->uniform-array, list->uniform-array, array-prototype
685 Instead, use make-typed-array, list->typed-array, or array-type,
688 ** Last but not least, the `λ' macro can be used in lieu of `lambda'
690 * Changes to the C interface
692 ** Guile now uses libgc, the Boehm-Demers-Weiser garbage collector
694 The semantics of `scm_gc_malloc ()' have been changed, in a
695 backward-compatible way. A new allocation routine,
696 `scm_gc_malloc_pointerless ()', was added.
698 Libgc is a conservative GC, which we hope will make interaction with C
699 code easier and less error-prone.
701 ** The GH interface (deprecated in version 1.6, 2001) was removed.
703 ** Internal `scm_i_' functions now have "hidden" linkage with GCC/ELF
705 This makes these internal functions technically not callable from
708 ** Functions for handling `scm_option' now no longer require an argument
709 indicating length of the `scm_t_option' array.
711 ** scm_primitive_load_path has additional argument, exception_on_error
713 ** New C function: scm_module_public_interface
715 This procedure corresponds to Scheme's `module-public-interface'.
717 ** `scm_stat' has an additional argument, `exception_on_error'
718 ** `scm_primitive_load_path' has an additional argument `exception_on_not_found'
720 ** `scm_set_port_seek' and `scm_set_port_truncate' use the `scm_t_off' type
722 Previously they would use the `off_t' type, which is fragile since its
723 definition depends on the application's value for `_FILE_OFFSET_BITS'.
725 ** The `long_long' C type, deprecated in 1.8, has been removed
727 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures: scm_make_uve,
728 scm_array_prototype, scm_list_to_uniform_array,
729 scm_dimensions_to_uniform_array, scm_make_ra, scm_shap2ra, scm_cvref,
730 scm_ra_set_contp, scm_aind, scm_raprin1
732 These functions have been deprecated since early 2005.
734 * Changes to the distribution
736 ** Guile's license is now LGPLv3+
738 In other words the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3 or
739 later (at the discretion of each person that chooses to redistribute
742 ** GOOPS documentation folded into Guile reference manual
744 GOOPS, Guile's object system, used to be documented in separate manuals.
745 This content is now included in Guile's manual directly.
747 ** `guile-config' will be deprecated in favor of `pkg-config'
749 `guile-config' has been rewritten to get its information from
750 `pkg-config', so this should be a transparent change. Note however that
751 guile.m4 has yet to be modified to call pkg-config instead of
754 ** Guile now provides `guile-2.0.pc' instead of `guile-1.8.pc'
756 Programs that use `pkg-config' to find Guile or one of its Autoconf
757 macros should now require `guile-2.0' instead of `guile-1.8'.
759 ** New installation directory: $(pkglibdir)/1.9/ccache
761 If $(libdir) is /usr/lib, for example, Guile will install its .go files
762 to /usr/lib/guile/1.9/ccache. These files are architecture-specific.
764 ** Dynamically loadable extensions may be placed in a Guile-specific path
766 Before, Guile only searched the system library paths for extensions
767 (e.g. /usr/lib), which meant that the names of Guile extensions had to
768 be globally unique. Installing them to a Guile-specific extensions
769 directory is cleaner. Use `pkg-config --variable=extensionsdir
770 guile-2.0' to get the location of the extensions directory.
772 ** New dependency: libgc
774 See http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/, for more information.
776 ** New dependency: GNU libunistring
778 See http://www.gnu.org/software/libunistring/, for more information. Our
779 Unicode support uses routines from libunistring.
783 Changes in 1.8.8 (since 1.8.7)
787 ** Fix possible buffer overruns when parsing numbers
788 ** Avoid clash with system setjmp/longjmp on IA64
789 ** Fix `wrong type arg' exceptions with IPv6 addresses
792 Changes in 1.8.7 (since 1.8.6)
794 * New modules (see the manual for details)
796 ** `(srfi srfi-98)', an interface to access environment variables
800 ** Fix compilation with `--disable-deprecated'
801 ** Fix %fast-slot-ref/set!, to avoid possible segmentation fault
802 ** Fix MinGW build problem caused by HAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC confusion
803 ** Fix build problem when scm_t_timespec is different from struct timespec
804 ** Fix build when compiled with -Wundef -Werror
805 ** More build fixes for `alphaev56-dec-osf5.1b' (Tru64)
806 ** Build fixes for `powerpc-ibm-aix5.3.0.0' (AIX 5.3)
807 ** With GCC, always compile with `-mieee' on `alpha*' and `sh*'
808 ** Better diagnose broken `(strftime "%z" ...)' in `time.test' (bug #24130)
809 ** Fix parsing of SRFI-88/postfix keywords longer than 128 characters
810 ** Fix reading of complex numbers where both parts are inexact decimals
812 ** Allow @ macro to work with (ice-9 syncase)
814 Previously, use of the @ macro in a module whose code is being
815 transformed by (ice-9 syncase) would cause an "Invalid syntax" error.
816 Now it works as you would expect (giving the value of the specified
819 ** Have `scm_take_locale_symbol ()' return an interned symbol (bug #25865)
822 Changes in 1.8.6 (since 1.8.5)
824 * New features (see the manual for details)
826 ** New convenience function `scm_c_symbol_length ()'
828 ** Single stepping through code from Emacs
830 When you use GDS to evaluate Scheme code from Emacs, you can now use
831 `C-u' to indicate that you want to single step through that code. See
832 `Evaluating Scheme Code' in the manual for more details.
834 ** New "guile(1)" man page!
836 * Changes to the distribution
838 ** Automake's `AM_MAINTAINER_MODE' is no longer used
840 Thus, the `--enable-maintainer-mode' configure option is no longer
841 available: Guile is now always configured in "maintainer mode".
843 ** `ChangeLog' files are no longer updated
845 Instead, changes are detailed in the version control system's logs. See
846 the top-level `ChangeLog' files for details.
851 ** `symbol->string' now returns a read-only string, as per R5RS
852 ** Fix incorrect handling of the FLAGS argument of `fold-matches'
853 ** `guile-config link' now prints `-L$libdir' before `-lguile'
854 ** Fix memory corruption involving GOOPS' `class-redefinition'
855 ** Fix possible deadlock in `mutex-lock'
856 ** Fix build issue on Tru64 and ia64-hp-hpux11.23 (`SCM_UNPACK' macro)
857 ** Fix build issue on mips, mipsel, powerpc and ia64 (stack direction)
858 ** Fix build issue on hppa2.0w-hp-hpux11.11 (`dirent64' and `readdir64_r')
859 ** Fix build issue on i386-unknown-freebsd7.0 ("break strict-aliasing rules")
860 ** Fix misleading output from `(help rationalize)'
861 ** Fix build failure on Debian hppa architecture (bad stack growth detection)
862 ** Fix `gcd' when called with a single, negative argument.
863 ** Fix `Stack overflow' errors seen when building on some platforms
864 ** Fix bug when `scm_with_guile ()' was called several times from the
866 ** The handler of SRFI-34 `with-exception-handler' is now invoked in the
867 dynamic environment of the call to `raise'
868 ** Fix potential deadlock in `make-struct'
869 ** Fix compilation problem with libltdl from Libtool 2.2.x
870 ** Fix sloppy bound checking in `string-{ref,set!}' with the empty string
873 Changes in 1.8.5 (since 1.8.4)
875 * Infrastructure changes
877 ** Guile repository switched from CVS to Git
879 The new repository can be accessed using
880 "git-clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/guile.git", or can be browsed on-line at
881 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=guile.git . See `README' for details.
883 ** Add support for `pkg-config'
885 See "Autoconf Support" in the manual for details.
887 * New modules (see the manual for details)
891 * New features (see the manual for details)
893 ** New `postfix' read option, for SRFI-88 keyword syntax
894 ** Some I/O primitives have been inlined, which improves I/O performance
895 ** New object-based traps infrastructure
897 This is a GOOPS-based infrastructure that builds on Guile's low-level
898 evaluator trap calls and facilitates the development of debugging
899 features like single-stepping, breakpoints, tracing and profiling.
900 See the `Traps' node of the manual for details.
902 ** New support for working on Guile code from within Emacs
904 Guile now incorporates the `GDS' library (previously distributed
905 separately) for working on Guile code from within Emacs. See the
906 `Using Guile In Emacs' node of the manual for details.
910 ** `scm_add_slot ()' no longer segfaults (fixes bug #22369)
911 ** Fixed `(ice-9 match)' for patterns like `((_ ...) ...)'
913 Previously, expressions like `(match '((foo) (bar)) (((_ ...) ...) #t))'
914 would trigger an unbound variable error for `match:andmap'.
916 ** `(oop goops describe)' now properly provides the `describe' feature
917 ** Fixed `args-fold' from `(srfi srfi-37)'
919 Previously, parsing short option names of argument-less options would
920 lead to a stack overflow.
922 ** `(srfi srfi-35)' is now visible through `cond-expand'
923 ** Fixed type-checking for the second argument of `eval'
924 ** Fixed type-checking for SRFI-1 `partition'
925 ** Fixed `struct-ref' and `struct-set!' on "light structs"
926 ** Honor struct field access rights in GOOPS
927 ** Changed the storage strategy of source properties, which fixes a deadlock
928 ** Allow compilation of Guile-using programs in C99 mode with GCC 4.3 and later
929 ** Fixed build issue for GNU/Linux on IA64
930 ** Fixed build issues on NetBSD 1.6
931 ** Fixed build issue on Solaris 2.10 x86_64
932 ** Fixed build issue with DEC/Compaq/HP's compiler
933 ** Fixed `scm_from_complex_double' build issue on FreeBSD
934 ** Fixed `alloca' build issue on FreeBSD 6
935 ** Removed use of non-portable makefile constructs
936 ** Fixed shadowing of libc's <random.h> on Tru64, which broke compilation
937 ** Make sure all tests honor `$TMPDIR'
940 Changes in 1.8.4 (since 1.8.3)
944 ** CR (ASCII 0x0d) is (again) recognized as a token delimiter by the reader
945 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when displaying the
946 backtrace of a stack with a promise object (made by `delay') in it.
947 ** Make `accept' leave guile mode while blocking
948 ** `scm_c_read ()' and `scm_c_write ()' now type-check their port argument
949 ** Fixed a build problem on AIX (use of func_data identifier)
950 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when hashx-ref or hashx-set! was
951 called with an associator proc that returns neither a pair nor #f.
952 ** Secondary threads now always return a valid module for (current-module).
953 ** Avoid MacOS build problems caused by incorrect combination of "64"
954 system and library calls.
955 ** `guile-snarf' now honors `$TMPDIR'
956 ** `guile-config compile' now reports CPPFLAGS used at compile-time
957 ** Fixed build with Sun Studio (Solaris 9)
958 ** Fixed wrong-type-arg errors when creating zero length SRFI-4
959 uniform vectors on AIX.
960 ** Fixed a deadlock that occurs upon GC with multiple threads.
961 ** Fixed compile problem with GCC on Solaris and AIX (use of _Complex_I)
962 ** Fixed autotool-derived build problems on AIX 6.1.
963 ** Fixed NetBSD/alpha support
964 ** Fixed MacOS build problem caused by use of rl_get_keymap(_name)
966 * New modules (see the manual for details)
970 * Documentation fixes and improvements
972 ** Removed premature breakpoint documentation
974 The features described are not available in the series of 1.8.x
975 releases, so the documentation was misleading and has been removed.
977 ** More about Guile's default *random-state* variable
979 ** GOOPS: more about how to use `next-method'
981 * Changes to the distribution
983 ** Corrected a few files that referred incorrectly to the old GPL + special exception licence
985 In fact Guile since 1.8.0 has been licensed with the GNU Lesser
986 General Public License, and the few incorrect files have now been
987 fixed to agree with the rest of the Guile distribution.
989 ** Removed unnecessary extra copies of COPYING*
991 The distribution now contains a single COPYING.LESSER at its top level.
994 Changes in 1.8.3 (since 1.8.2)
996 * New modules (see the manual for details)
1003 ** The `(ice-9 slib)' module now works as expected
1004 ** Expressions like "(set! 'x #t)" no longer yield a crash
1005 ** Warnings about duplicate bindings now go to stderr
1006 ** A memory leak in `make-socket-address' was fixed
1007 ** Alignment issues (e.g., on SPARC) in network routines were fixed
1008 ** A threading issue that showed up at least on NetBSD was fixed
1009 ** Build problems on Solaris and IRIX fixed
1011 * Implementation improvements
1013 ** The reader is now faster, which reduces startup time
1014 ** Procedures returned by `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' are faster
1017 Changes in 1.8.2 (since 1.8.1):
1019 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
1021 ** set-program-arguments
1024 * Incompatible changes
1026 ** The body of a top-level `define' no longer sees the binding being created
1028 In a top-level `define', the binding being created is no longer visible
1029 from the `define' body. This breaks code like
1030 "(define foo (begin (set! foo 1) (+ foo 1)))", where `foo' is now
1031 unbound in the body. However, such code was not R5RS-compliant anyway,
1036 ** Fractions were not `equal?' if stored in unreduced form.
1037 (A subtle problem, since printing a value reduced it, making it work.)
1038 ** srfi-60 `copy-bit' failed on 64-bit systems
1039 ** "guile --use-srfi" option at the REPL can replace core functions
1040 (Programs run with that option were ok, but in the interactive REPL
1041 the core bindings got priority, preventing SRFI replacements or
1043 ** `regexp-exec' doesn't abort() on #\nul in the input or bad flags arg
1044 ** `kill' on mingw throws an error for a PID other than oneself
1045 ** Procedure names are attached to procedure-with-setters
1046 ** Array read syntax works with negative lower bound
1047 ** `array-in-bounds?' fix if an array has different lower bounds on each index
1048 ** `*' returns exact 0 for "(* inexact 0)"
1049 This follows what it always did for "(* 0 inexact)".
1050 ** SRFI-19: Value returned by `(current-time time-process)' was incorrect
1051 ** SRFI-19: `date->julian-day' did not account for timezone offset
1052 ** `ttyname' no longer crashes when passed a non-tty argument
1053 ** `inet-ntop' no longer crashes on SPARC when passed an `AF_INET' address
1054 ** Small memory leaks have been fixed in `make-fluid' and `add-history'
1055 ** GOOPS: Fixed a bug in `method-more-specific?'
1056 ** Build problems on Solaris fixed
1057 ** Build problems on HP-UX IA64 fixed
1058 ** Build problems on MinGW fixed
1061 Changes in 1.8.1 (since 1.8.0):
1063 * LFS functions are now used to access 64-bit files on 32-bit systems.
1065 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
1067 ** primitive-_exit - [Scheme] the-root-module
1068 ** scm_primitive__exit - [C]
1069 ** make-completion-function - [Scheme] (ice-9 readline)
1070 ** scm_c_locale_stringn_to_number - [C]
1071 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse [C]
1072 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse_x [C]
1080 ** Build problems have been fixed on MacOS, SunOS, and QNX.
1082 ** `strftime' fix sign of %z timezone offset.
1084 ** A one-dimensional array can now be 'equal?' to a vector.
1086 ** Structures, records, and SRFI-9 records can now be compared with `equal?'.
1088 ** SRFI-14 standard char sets are recomputed upon a successful `setlocale'.
1090 ** `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' now have strict type checks.
1092 Record accessor and modifier procedures now throw an error if the
1093 record type of the record they're given is not the type expected.
1094 (Previously accessors returned #f and modifiers silently did nothing).
1096 ** It is now OK to use both autoload and use-modules on a given module.
1098 ** `apply' checks the number of arguments more carefully on "0 or 1" funcs.
1100 Previously there was no checking on primatives like make-vector that
1101 accept "one or two" arguments. Now there is.
1103 ** The srfi-1 assoc function now calls its equality predicate properly.
1105 Previously srfi-1 assoc would call the equality predicate with the key
1106 last. According to the SRFI, the key should be first.
1108 ** A bug in n-par-for-each and n-for-each-par-map has been fixed.
1110 ** The array-set! procedure no longer segfaults when given a bit vector.
1112 ** Bugs in make-shared-array have been fixed.
1114 ** string<? and friends now follow char<? etc order on 8-bit chars.
1116 ** The format procedure now handles inf and nan values for ~f correctly.
1118 ** exact->inexact should no longer overflow when given certain large fractions.
1120 ** srfi-9 accessor and modifier procedures now have strict record type checks.
1122 This matches the srfi-9 specification.
1124 ** (ice-9 ftw) procedures won't ignore different files with same inode number.
1126 Previously the (ice-9 ftw) procedures would ignore any file that had
1127 the same inode number as a file they had already seen, even if that
1128 file was on a different device.
1131 Changes in 1.8.0 (changes since the 1.6.x series):
1133 * Changes to the distribution
1135 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
1137 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
1139 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
1141 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
1143 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
1145 That is, things like HAVE_STRING_H no longer leak from Guile's
1148 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
1150 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
1151 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
1152 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
1153 so the current effective-version is "1.8". The effective version
1154 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
1155 items like the versioned share directory name
1156 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.8.
1158 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
1159 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
1160 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
1161 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
1162 with each micro release during a stable series.
1164 ** Thread implementation has changed.
1166 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
1167 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
1168 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
1169 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
1170 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
1173 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
1174 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
1175 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
1176 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
1179 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
1180 in which case "null" threads are used.
1182 See the manual for details, nodes "Initialization", "Multi-Threading",
1183 "Blocking", and others.
1185 ** There is the new notion of 'discouraged' features.
1187 This is a milder form of deprecation.
1189 Things that are discouraged should not be used in new code, but it is
1190 OK to leave them in old code for now. When a discouraged feature is
1191 used, no warning message is printed like there is for 'deprecated'
1192 features. Also, things that are merely discouraged are nevertheless
1193 implemented efficiently, while deprecated features can be very slow.
1195 You can omit discouraged features from libguile by configuring it with
1196 the '--disable-discouraged' option.
1198 ** Deprecation warnings can be controlled at run-time.
1200 (debug-enable 'warn-deprecated) switches them on and (debug-disable
1201 'warn-deprecated) switches them off.
1203 ** Support for SRFI 61, extended cond syntax for multiple values has
1206 This SRFI is always available.
1208 ** Support for require-extension, SRFI-55, has been added.
1210 The SRFI-55 special form `require-extension' has been added. It is
1211 available at startup, and provides a portable way to load Scheme
1212 extensions. SRFI-55 only requires support for one type of extension,
1213 "srfi"; so a set of SRFIs may be loaded via (require-extension (srfi 1
1216 ** New module (srfi srfi-26) provides support for `cut' and `cute'.
1218 The (srfi srfi-26) module is an implementation of SRFI-26 which
1219 provides the `cut' and `cute' syntax. These may be used to specialize
1220 parameters without currying.
1222 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
1224 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
1225 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
1227 ** The modules (srfi srfi-13), (srfi srfi-14) and (srfi srfi-4) have
1228 been merged with the core, making their functionality always
1231 The modules are still available, tho, and you could use them together
1232 with a renaming import, for example.
1234 ** Guile no longer includes its own version of libltdl.
1236 The official version is good enough now.
1238 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
1240 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
1241 provided. Use 'make html'.
1243 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
1245 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when you
1246 don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but where you
1247 have some section(s) of code which you consider can run in parallel to
1248 other sections. See ice-9/serialize.scm for more information.
1250 ** The configure option '--disable-arrays' has been removed.
1252 Support for arrays and uniform numeric arrays is now always included
1255 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1257 ** New command line option `-L'.
1259 This option adds a directory to the front of the load path.
1261 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
1263 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
1264 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
1266 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
1268 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
1269 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
1271 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
1273 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
1274 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
1277 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
1280 (define-module (demo)
1284 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
1287 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1289 ** Guardians have changed back to their original semantics
1291 Guardians now behave like described in the paper by Dybvig et al. In
1292 particular, they no longer make guarantees about the order in which
1293 they return objects, and they can no longer be greedy.
1295 They no longer drop cyclic data structures.
1297 The C function scm_make_guardian has been changed incompatibly and no
1298 longer takes the 'greedy_p' argument.
1300 ** New function hashx-remove!
1302 This function completes the set of 'hashx' functions.
1304 ** The concept of dynamic roots has been factored into continuation
1305 barriers and dynamic states.
1307 Each thread has a current dynamic state that carries the values of the
1308 fluids. You can create and copy dynamic states and use them as the
1309 second argument for 'eval'. See "Fluids and Dynamic States" in the
1312 To restrict the influence that captured continuations can have on the
1313 control flow, you can errect continuation barriers. See "Continuation
1314 Barriers" in the manual.
1316 The function call-with-dynamic-root now essentially temporarily
1317 installs a new dynamic state and errects a continuation barrier.
1319 ** The default load path no longer includes "." at the end.
1321 Automatically loading modules from the current directory should not
1322 happen by default. If you want to allow it in a more controlled
1323 manner, set the environment variable GUILE_LOAD_PATH or the Scheme
1324 variable %load-path.
1326 ** The uniform vector and array support has been overhauled.
1328 It now complies with SRFI-4 and the weird prototype based uniform
1329 array creation has been deprecated. See the manual for more details.
1331 Some non-compatible changes have been made:
1332 - characters can no longer be stored into byte arrays.
1333 - strings and bit vectors are no longer considered to be uniform numeric
1335 - array-rank throws an error for non-arrays instead of returning zero.
1336 - array-ref does no longer accept non-arrays when no indices are given.
1338 There is the new notion of 'generalized vectors' and corresponding
1339 procedures like 'generalized-vector-ref'. Generalized vectors include
1340 strings, bitvectors, ordinary vectors, and uniform numeric vectors.
1342 Arrays use generalized vectors as their storage, so that you still
1343 have arrays of characters, bits, etc. However, uniform-array-read!
1344 and uniform-array-write can no longer read/write strings and
1347 ** There is now support for copy-on-write substrings, mutation-sharing
1348 substrings and read-only strings.
1350 Three new procedures are related to this: substring/shared,
1351 substring/copy, and substring/read-only. See the manual for more
1354 ** Backtraces will now highlight the value that caused the error.
1356 By default, these values are enclosed in "{...}", such as in this
1365 <unnamed port>:1:1: In procedure car in expression (car (quote a)):
1366 <unnamed port>:1:1: Wrong type (expecting pair): a
1367 ABORT: (wrong-type-arg)
1369 The prefix and suffix used for highlighting can be set via the two new
1370 printer options 'highlight-prefix' and 'highlight-suffix'. For
1371 example, putting this into ~/.guile will output the bad value in bold
1372 on an ANSI terminal:
1374 (print-set! highlight-prefix "\x1b[1m")
1375 (print-set! highlight-suffix "\x1b[22m")
1378 ** 'gettext' support for internationalization has been added.
1380 See the manual for details.
1382 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
1384 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
1387 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
1389 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
1390 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
1391 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
1392 '@' as a target of 'set!', as in (set! (@ mod var) val).
1394 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
1395 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
1396 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
1399 ** Keyword syntax has been made more disciplined.
1401 Previously, the name of a keyword was read as a 'token' but printed as
1402 a symbol. Now, it is read as a general Scheme datum which must be a
1413 ERROR: In expression (a b c):
1417 ERROR: Unbound variable: foo
1422 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): 12
1426 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): (a b c)
1430 ** The printing of symbols that might look like keywords can be
1433 The new printer option 'quote-keywordish-symbols' controls how symbols
1434 are printed that have a colon as their first or last character. The
1435 default now is to only quote a symbol with #{...}# when the read
1436 option 'keywords' is not '#f'. Thus:
1438 guile> (define foo (string->symbol ":foo"))
1439 guile> (read-set! keywords #f)
1442 guile> (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
1445 guile> (print-set! quote-keywordish-symbols #f)
1449 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
1451 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
1452 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
1453 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
1456 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
1459 ** The module system now checks for duplicate bindings.
1461 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
1464 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more 'duplicates'
1465 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
1468 (define-module (foo)
1473 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
1474 has been detected is to
1476 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
1477 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
1478 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
1481 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
1484 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
1486 to your .guile init file.
1488 ** New define-module option: :replace
1490 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
1493 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
1494 for the core binding `format'.
1496 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
1498 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
1499 a prefix to all imported bindings.
1501 (define-module (foo)
1502 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
1504 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
1507 ** Conflicting generic functions can be automatically merged.
1509 When two imported bindings conflict and they are both generic
1510 functions, the two functions can now be merged automatically. This is
1511 activated with the 'duplicates' handler 'merge-generics'.
1513 ** New function: effective-version
1515 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
1516 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
1517 to the distribution" above.
1519 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
1521 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
1522 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
1524 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
1526 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
1527 instead of blocking and indicate failure.
1529 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
1531 The function 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
1532 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
1535 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
1537 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
1539 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
1541 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
1542 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
1543 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
1546 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
1547 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
1548 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
1549 'system-async-mark'.
1551 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
1552 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
1554 When a thread blocks on a mutex, a condition variable or is waiting
1555 for IO to be possible, it will still execute system asyncs. This can
1556 be used to interrupt such a thread by making it execute a 'throw', for
1559 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
1561 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
1562 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
1565 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
1566 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
1568 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
1569 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
1570 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
1571 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
1572 level for the current thread.
1574 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
1576 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
1578 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
1579 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
1582 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
1584 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
1586 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
1589 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
1591 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
1594 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
1595 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
1596 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
1598 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
1599 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
1600 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
1601 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
1612 ERROR: Numerical overflow
1614 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
1617 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
1619 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
1620 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
1621 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
1632 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
1634 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
1635 them is also done exactly, of course:
1640 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
1641 for exact arguments.
1643 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
1644 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
1646 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
1648 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
1649 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
1650 equal to a floating point number. For example:
1652 (inexact->exact 1.234)
1653 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
1655 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitly:
1657 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
1660 ** New function 'rationalize'.
1662 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
1663 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
1665 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
1668 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
1669 result when both its arguments are exact.
1671 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
1673 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
1674 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
1675 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
1677 ** Guile now has uninterned symbols.
1679 The new function 'make-symbol' will return an uninterned symbol. This
1680 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
1681 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
1683 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
1686 ** pretty-print has more options.
1688 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
1689 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
1690 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
1692 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
1694 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
1695 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
1696 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
1698 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
1700 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
1701 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
1703 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
1705 Change your code to use 'define-macro' or r5rs macros. Also, be aware
1706 that macro expansion will not be done during evaluation, but prior to
1709 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
1711 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
1712 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
1713 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
1714 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
1715 without the soft port blocking.
1717 ** Deprecated: undefine
1719 There is no replacement for undefine.
1721 ** The functions make-keyword-from-dash-symbol and keyword-dash-symbol
1722 have been discouraged.
1724 They are relics from a time where a keyword like #:foo was used
1725 directly as a Tcl option "-foo" and thus keywords were internally
1726 stored as a symbol with a starting dash. We now store a symbol
1729 Use symbol->keyword and keyword->symbol instead.
1731 ** The `cheap' debug option is now obsolete
1733 Evaluator trap calls are now unconditionally "cheap" - in other words,
1734 they pass a debug object to the trap handler rather than a full
1735 continuation. The trap handler code can capture a full continuation
1736 by using `call-with-current-continuation' in the usual way, if it so
1739 The `cheap' option is retained for now so as not to break existing
1740 code which gets or sets it, but setting it now has no effect. It will
1741 be removed in the next major Guile release.
1743 ** Evaluator trap calls now support `tweaking'
1745 `Tweaking' means that the trap handler code can modify the Scheme
1746 expression that is about to be evaluated (in the case of an
1747 enter-frame trap) or the value that is being returned (in the case of
1748 an exit-frame trap). The trap handler code indicates that it wants to
1749 do this by returning a pair whose car is the symbol 'instead and whose
1750 cdr is the modified expression or return value.
1752 * Changes to the C interface
1754 ** The functions scm_hash_fn_remove_x and scm_hashx_remove_x no longer
1755 take a 'delete' function argument.
1757 This argument makes no sense since the delete function is used to
1758 remove a pair from an alist, and this must not be configurable.
1760 This is an incompatible change.
1762 ** The GH interface is now subject to the deprecation mechanism
1764 The GH interface has been deprecated for quite some time but now it is
1765 actually removed from Guile when it is configured with
1766 --disable-deprecated.
1768 See the manual "Transitioning away from GH" for more information.
1770 ** A new family of functions for converting between C values and
1771 Scheme values has been added.
1773 These functions follow a common naming scheme and are designed to be
1774 easier to use, thread-safe and more future-proof than the older
1777 - int scm_is_* (...)
1779 These are predicates that return a C boolean: 1 or 0. Instead of
1780 SCM_NFALSEP, you can now use scm_is_true, for example.
1782 - <type> scm_to_<type> (SCM val, ...)
1784 These are functions that convert a Scheme value into an appropriate
1785 C value. For example, you can use scm_to_int to safely convert from
1788 - SCM scm_from_<type> (<type> val, ...)
1790 These functions convert from a C type to a SCM value; for example,
1791 scm_from_int for ints.
1793 There is a huge number of these functions, for numbers, strings,
1794 symbols, vectors, etc. They are documented in the reference manual in
1795 the API section together with the types that they apply to.
1797 ** New functions for dealing with complex numbers in C have been added.
1799 The new functions are scm_c_make_rectangular, scm_c_make_polar,
1800 scm_c_real_part, scm_c_imag_part, scm_c_magnitude and scm_c_angle.
1801 They work like scm_make_rectangular etc but take or return doubles
1804 ** The function scm_make_complex has been discouraged.
1806 Use scm_c_make_rectangular instead.
1808 ** The INUM macros have been deprecated.
1810 A lot of code uses these macros to do general integer conversions,
1811 although the macros only work correctly with fixnums. Use the
1812 following alternatives.
1814 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
1815 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
1816 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
1817 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
1819 SCM_VALIDATE_INUM_* -> Do not use these; scm_to_int, etc. will
1820 do the validating for you.
1822 ** The scm_num2<type> and scm_<type>2num functions and scm_make_real
1823 have been discouraged.
1825 Use the newer scm_to_<type> and scm_from_<type> functions instead for
1826 new code. The functions have been discouraged since they don't fit
1829 ** The 'boolean' macros SCM_FALSEP etc have been discouraged.
1831 They have strange names, especially SCM_NFALSEP, and SCM_BOOLP
1832 evaluates its argument twice. Use scm_is_true, etc. instead for new
1835 ** The macro SCM_EQ_P has been discouraged.
1837 Use scm_is_eq for new code, which fits better into the naming
1840 ** The macros SCM_CONSP, SCM_NCONSP, SCM_NULLP, and SCM_NNULLP have
1843 Use the function scm_is_pair or scm_is_null instead.
1845 ** The functions scm_round and scm_truncate have been deprecated and
1846 are now available as scm_c_round and scm_c_truncate, respectively.
1848 These functions occupy the names that scm_round_number and
1849 scm_truncate_number should have.
1851 ** The functions scm_c_string2str, scm_c_substring2str, and
1852 scm_c_symbol2str have been deprecated.
1854 Use scm_to_locale_stringbuf or similar instead, maybe together with
1857 ** New functions scm_c_make_string, scm_c_string_length,
1858 scm_c_string_ref, scm_c_string_set_x, scm_c_substring,
1859 scm_c_substring_shared, scm_c_substring_copy.
1861 These are like scm_make_string, scm_length, etc. but are slightly
1862 easier to use from C.
1864 ** The macros SCM_STRINGP, SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_STRING_LENGTH,
1865 SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, and SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH have been deprecated.
1867 They export too many assumptions about the implementation of strings
1868 and symbols that are no longer true in the presence of
1869 mutation-sharing substrings and when Guile switches to some form of
1872 When working with strings, it is often best to use the normal string
1873 functions provided by Guile, such as scm_c_string_ref,
1874 scm_c_string_set_x, scm_string_append, etc. Be sure to look in the
1875 manual since many more such functions are now provided than
1878 When you want to convert a SCM string to a C string, use the
1879 scm_to_locale_string function or similar instead. For symbols, use
1880 scm_symbol_to_string and then work with that string. Because of the
1881 new string representation, scm_symbol_to_string does not need to copy
1882 and is thus quite efficient.
1884 ** Some string, symbol and keyword functions have been discouraged.
1886 They don't fit into the uniform naming scheme and are not explicit
1887 about the character encoding.
1889 Replace according to the following table:
1891 scm_allocate_string -> scm_c_make_string
1892 scm_take_str -> scm_take_locale_stringn
1893 scm_take0str -> scm_take_locale_string
1894 scm_mem2string -> scm_from_locale_stringn
1895 scm_str2string -> scm_from_locale_string
1896 scm_makfrom0str -> scm_from_locale_string
1897 scm_mem2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symboln
1898 scm_mem2uninterned_symbol -> scm_from_locale_stringn + scm_make_symbol
1899 scm_str2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symbol
1901 SCM_SYMBOL_HASH -> scm_hashq
1902 SCM_SYMBOL_INTERNED_P -> scm_symbol_interned_p
1904 scm_c_make_keyword -> scm_from_locale_keyword
1906 ** The functions scm_keyword_to_symbol and sym_symbol_to_keyword are
1907 now also available to C code.
1909 ** SCM_KEYWORDP and SCM_KEYWORDSYM have been deprecated.
1911 Use scm_is_keyword and scm_keyword_to_symbol instead, but note that
1912 the latter returns the true name of the keyword, not the 'dash name',
1913 as SCM_KEYWORDSYM used to do.
1915 ** A new way to access arrays in a thread-safe and efficient way has
1918 See the manual, node "Accessing Arrays From C".
1920 ** The old uniform vector and bitvector implementations have been
1921 unceremoniously removed.
1923 This implementation exposed the details of the tagging system of
1924 Guile. Use the new C API explained in the manual in node "Uniform
1925 Numeric Vectors" and "Bit Vectors", respectively.
1927 The following macros are gone: SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE,
1928 SCM_UVECTOR_MAXLENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_UVECTOR_TAG,
1929 SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVECTOR_P, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE,
1930 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
1931 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_BITVECTOR_TAG,
1932 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVEC_REF, SCM_BITVEC_SET,
1935 ** The macros dealing with vectors have been deprecated.
1937 Use the new functions scm_is_vector, scm_vector_elements,
1938 scm_vector_writable_elements, etc, or scm_is_simple_vector,
1939 SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_REF, SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_SET, etc instead. See the
1940 manual for more details.
1942 Deprecated are SCM_VECTORP, SCM_VELTS, SCM_VECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
1943 SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_REF, SCM_VECTOR_SET, SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS.
1945 The following macros have been removed: SCM_VECTOR_BASE,
1946 SCM_SET_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_MAKE_VECTOR_TAG, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH,
1947 SCM_VELTS_AS_STACKITEMS, SCM_SETVELTS, SCM_GC_WRITABLE_VELTS.
1949 ** Some C functions and macros related to arrays have been deprecated.
1951 Migrate according to the following table:
1953 scm_make_uve -> scm_make_typed_array, scm_make_u8vector etc.
1954 scm_make_ra -> scm_make_array
1955 scm_shap2ra -> scm_make_array
1956 scm_cvref -> scm_c_generalized_vector_ref
1957 scm_ra_set_contp -> do not use
1958 scm_aind -> scm_array_handle_pos
1959 scm_raprin1 -> scm_display or scm_write
1961 SCM_ARRAYP -> scm_is_array
1962 SCM_ARRAY_NDIM -> scm_c_array_rank
1963 SCM_ARRAY_DIMS -> scm_array_handle_dims
1964 SCM_ARRAY_CONTP -> do not use
1965 SCM_ARRAY_MEM -> do not use
1966 SCM_ARRAY_V -> scm_array_handle_elements or similar
1967 SCM_ARRAY_BASE -> do not use
1969 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
1971 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which returns a pointer
1972 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
1974 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
1975 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
1976 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
1977 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
1979 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SCM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
1981 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
1982 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
1983 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
1985 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
1986 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
1988 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
1989 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
1990 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
1991 smob word. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
1993 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and re-entries.
1995 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
1996 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
1997 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
1998 prevent a potential memory leak:
2005 scm_dynwind_begin (0);
2007 mem = scm_malloc (100);
2008 scm_dynwind_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY);
2010 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
2011 SCM_DYNWIND_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless.
2018 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY, MEM will be freed by
2019 SCM_DYNWIND_END as well.
2023 For full documentation, see the node "Dynamic Wind" in the manual.
2025 ** New function scm_dynwind_free
2027 This function calls 'free' on a given pointer when a dynwind context
2028 is left. Thus the call to scm_dynwind_unwind_handler above could be
2029 replaced with simply scm_dynwind_free (mem).
2031 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
2032 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
2034 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
2036 ** New functions scm_dynwind_block_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs
2038 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
2039 scm_dynwind_block_asyncs in a 'dynwind context' (see above). Likewise for
2040 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs.
2042 ** The macros SCM_DEFER_INTS, SCM_ALLOW_INTS, SCM_REDEFER_INTS,
2043 SCM_REALLOW_INTS have been deprecated.
2045 They do no longer fulfill their original role of blocking signal
2046 delivery. Depending on what you want to achieve, replace a pair of
2047 SCM_DEFER_INTS and SCM_ALLOW_INTS with a dynwind context that locks a
2048 mutex, blocks asyncs, or both. See node "Critical Sections" in the
2051 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
2053 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
2054 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
2055 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
2057 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
2059 C code can now use scm_dynwind_current_<foo>_port in a 'dynwind
2060 context' (see above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
2062 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
2064 C code can now use scm_dynwind_fluid in a 'dynwind context' (see
2065 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
2067 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
2069 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
2070 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
2071 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
2073 ** The functions scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed.
2075 You should not have used them.
2077 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
2079 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
2080 private or renamed with a more suitable public name.
2082 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
2084 This macro is not intended for public use.
2086 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
2088 Use scm_is_true (scm_inexact_p (...)) instead.
2090 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
2092 Use scm_is_real instead.
2094 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
2096 Use scm_is_complex instead.
2098 ** Some preprocessor defines have been deprecated.
2100 These defines indicated whether a certain feature was present in Guile
2101 or not. Going forward, assume that the features are always present.
2103 The macros are: USE_THREADS, GUILE_ISELECT, READER_EXTENSIONS,
2104 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS, DYNAMIC_LINKING.
2106 The following macros have been removed completely: MEMOIZE_LOCALS,
2107 SCM_RECKLESS, SCM_CAUTIOUS.
2109 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
2111 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
2114 ** New function: scm_effective_version
2116 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
2117 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
2118 to the distribution" above.
2120 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
2122 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
2123 arguments are now passed directly:
2125 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
2127 This is an incompatible change.
2129 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
2131 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
2132 function in the init section.
2134 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
2136 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
2138 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
2139 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
2140 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
2141 stays roughly constant.
2143 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
2144 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
2145 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
2146 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
2147 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
2150 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
2151 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
2152 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
2153 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
2155 For understanding the memory usage of a GUILE program, the routine
2156 gc-live-object-stats returns an alist containing the number of live
2157 objects for every type.
2160 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
2162 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
2164 ** The struct scm_cell type has been renamed to scm_t_cell
2166 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
2167 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
2168 initializes a new cell (see below).
2170 ** New functions for memory management
2172 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
2173 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
2174 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
2175 cause aborts in long running programs.
2177 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
2178 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
2180 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
2181 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
2182 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
2183 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
2184 details and for upgrading instructions.
2186 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
2187 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
2188 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
2190 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
2192 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
2193 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
2194 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
2195 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
2196 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
2198 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
2199 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
2200 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
2202 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
2203 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
2205 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
2207 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old
2208 macros had problems because with them allocation and initialization
2209 was separated and the GC could sometimes observe half initialized
2210 cells. Only careful coding by the user of SCM_NEWCELL and
2211 SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
2213 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
2215 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
2218 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
2220 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
2222 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
2224 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or to define macros in
2225 Scheme, using 'define-macro'.
2227 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
2229 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
2230 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
2232 ** The names scm_internal_select, scm_thread_sleep, and
2233 scm_thread_usleep have been discouraged.
2235 Use scm_std_select, scm_std_sleep, scm_std_usleep instead.
2237 ** The GC can no longer be blocked.
2239 The global flags scm_gc_heap_lock and scm_block_gc have been removed.
2240 The GC can now run (partially) concurrently with other code and thus
2241 blocking it is not well defined.
2243 ** Many definitions have been removed that were previously deprecated.
2245 scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify,
2246 scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
2247 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2,
2248 scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY,
2249 SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED,
2250 scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL,
2251 SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL,
2252 SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG,
2253 SCM_NUM_SIGS, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
2254 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
2255 scm_eval2, root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
2256 SCM_RWSTRINGP, scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring,
2257 scm_tc7_substring, sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP,
2258 SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
2259 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
2260 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
2261 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
2262 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
2263 scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern, scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
2264 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
2265 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
2266 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
2267 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
2268 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
2269 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
2270 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
2271 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
2272 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
2273 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
2274 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable,
2275 SCM_CHARS, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH.
2277 * Changes to bundled modules
2281 Using the (ice-9 debug) module no longer automatically switches Guile
2282 to use the debugging evaluator. If you want to switch to the
2283 debugging evaluator (which is needed for backtrace information if you
2284 hit an error), please add an explicit "(debug-enable 'debug)" to your
2285 code just after the code to use (ice-9 debug).
2288 Changes since Guile 1.4:
2290 * Changes to the distribution
2292 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
2294 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
2296 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
2297 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
2298 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
2299 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
2300 indicate major changes in Guile.
2302 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
2303 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
2304 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
2305 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
2307 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
2308 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
2309 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
2310 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
2311 micro version number.
2313 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
2315 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
2317 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
2318 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
2320 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
2322 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
2323 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
2324 See INSTALL and README for more information.
2326 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
2328 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
2329 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
2330 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
2333 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
2335 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
2338 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
2340 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
2341 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
2343 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
2345 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
2346 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
2349 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
2351 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
2354 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
2357 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
2359 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
2361 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
2362 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
2363 open-output-string, get-output-string.
2365 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
2367 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
2369 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
2372 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
2374 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
2376 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
2378 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
2379 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
2380 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
2382 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
2384 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
2386 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
2387 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
2396 See README there for more info.
2398 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
2399 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
2402 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
2404 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
2406 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
2408 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
2409 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
2410 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
2412 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
2414 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
2415 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
2416 to be named `and-let*', of course.
2418 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
2419 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
2421 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
2424 (oop goops describe)
2426 (oop goops active-slot)
2427 (oop goops composite-slot)
2429 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
2430 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
2431 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
2433 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
2435 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
2436 in the default environment:
2438 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
2439 %read-line write-line
2441 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
2442 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
2444 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
2446 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
2449 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
2450 can be used for similar functionality.
2452 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
2454 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
2455 it defines two procedures:
2457 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
2459 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
2460 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
2461 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
2464 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
2466 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
2467 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
2468 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
2469 write large strings.
2471 ** New module (ice-9 match)
2473 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
2474 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
2476 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
2478 for complete documentation.
2480 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
2482 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
2483 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
2484 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
2485 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
2487 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
2488 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
2492 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
2493 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
2494 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
2497 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
2500 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
2501 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
2503 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
2504 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
2507 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
2510 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
2512 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
2514 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2516 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
2518 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
2519 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
2520 Scheme programs easier.
2522 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
2523 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
2524 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
2525 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
2526 `cond-expand' when using this option.
2529 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
2530 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
2532 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
2535 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
2537 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
2538 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
2539 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
2542 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2544 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
2546 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
2547 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
2548 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
2549 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
2550 was also ASCII, for example.
2552 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
2554 tag - no replacement.
2555 fseek - replaced by seek.
2556 list* - replaced by cons*.
2558 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
2562 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
2563 (define m (make-safe-module))
2564 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
2565 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
2566 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
2568 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
2570 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
2571 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
2572 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
2574 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
2576 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
2577 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
2578 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
2579 from the issues related to the module system.
2581 *** New function: load-extension
2583 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
2585 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
2587 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
2588 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
2589 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
2591 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
2593 This function registers a initialization function for use by
2594 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
2595 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
2596 support dynamic linking).
2598 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
2600 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
2601 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
2602 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
2603 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
2606 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
2607 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
2608 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
2609 library and initialize it explicitly.
2611 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
2612 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
2614 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
2616 (define-module (foo bar))
2618 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
2620 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
2622 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
2623 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
2625 (scheme-report-environment 5)
2626 (null-environment 5)
2627 (interaction-environment)
2633 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
2635 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
2636 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
2637 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
2638 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
2640 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
2641 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
2642 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
2643 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
2644 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
2645 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
2646 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
2647 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
2648 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
2649 one eval to the next.
2651 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
2652 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
2653 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
2654 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
2655 subforms are at the top-level as well.
2657 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
2658 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
2659 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
2660 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
2661 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
2662 used in a lexical environment.
2664 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
2665 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
2666 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
2667 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
2668 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
2669 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
2671 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
2673 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
2674 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
2675 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
2676 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
2677 new facilities: selection and renaming.
2679 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
2680 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
2681 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
2683 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
2684 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
2686 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
2687 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
2688 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
2690 (remove-if . zonk-y)
2691 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
2693 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
2694 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
2695 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
2696 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
2699 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
2700 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
2701 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
2702 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
2704 (remove-if . zonk-y)
2705 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
2706 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
2708 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
2709 ;; and all four by upcasing.
2710 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
2711 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
2712 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
2714 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
2716 (remove-if . zonk-y)
2717 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
2718 :renamer upcase-symbol))
2720 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
2721 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
2722 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
2724 See manual for more info.
2726 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
2728 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
2729 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
2730 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
2732 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
2734 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
2735 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
2736 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
2738 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
2739 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
2740 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
2741 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
2743 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
2745 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
2746 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
2748 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
2749 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
2750 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
2751 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
2752 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
2755 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
2756 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
2757 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
2758 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
2759 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
2760 successful and #f if it wasn't.
2762 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
2763 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
2764 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
2765 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
2766 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
2768 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
2769 objects are usually permanent.
2771 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
2772 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
2774 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
2776 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
2777 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
2780 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
2784 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
2789 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
2791 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
2792 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
2793 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
2794 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
2796 ** New function `make-object-property'
2798 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
2799 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
2803 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
2804 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
2808 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
2809 source properties eventually.
2811 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
2813 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
2814 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
2815 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
2817 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
2818 will be removed in the next release.
2820 ** New define-module option: pure
2822 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
2827 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
2830 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
2832 Export names NAME1 ...
2834 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
2835 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
2839 (define-module (foo)
2841 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
2844 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
2849 ** New function: object->string OBJ
2851 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
2853 ** New function: port? X
2855 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
2856 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
2858 ** New function: file-port?
2860 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
2862 ** New function: port-for-each proc
2864 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
2865 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
2866 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
2867 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
2868 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
2870 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
2872 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
2873 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
2874 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
2875 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
2876 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
2879 ** New function: close-fdes fd
2881 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
2882 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
2883 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
2884 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
2887 ** New function: crypt password salt
2889 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
2892 ** New function: chroot path
2894 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
2896 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
2898 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
2901 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
2903 Get or set the priority of the running process.
2905 ** New function: getpass prompt
2907 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
2910 ** New function: flock file operation
2912 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
2914 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
2916 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
2919 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
2921 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
2922 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
2923 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
2924 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
2925 of the temporary file.
2927 ** New function: open-input-string string
2929 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
2930 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
2931 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
2933 ** New function: open-output-string
2935 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
2936 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
2938 ** New function: get-output-string
2940 Return the contents of an output string port.
2942 ** New function: identity
2944 Return the argument.
2946 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
2947 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
2949 ** New function: inet-pton family address
2951 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
2952 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
2953 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
2956 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
2957 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
2959 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
2961 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
2962 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
2963 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
2966 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
2967 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
2968 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
2972 Use `identity' instead.
2978 ** Deprecated: return-it
2982 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
2984 Use `string-length' instead.
2986 ** Deprecated: flags
2988 Use `logior' instead.
2990 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
2992 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
2993 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
2994 port-for-each is more flexible.
2996 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
2997 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
2998 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
3000 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
3002 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
3004 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
3006 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
3008 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
3010 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
3011 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
3013 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
3014 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
3016 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
3017 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
3019 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
3021 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
3022 Removed function: builtin-bindings
3024 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
3025 Use module system operations for all variables.
3027 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
3029 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
3032 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
3034 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
3035 The following bugs have been fixed:
3037 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
3038 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
3041 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
3042 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
3043 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
3045 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
3046 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
3048 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
3049 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
3052 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
3053 The expansion used to be like so:
3055 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
3057 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
3059 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
3061 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
3062 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
3064 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
3066 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
3067 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
3068 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
3072 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
3073 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
3075 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
3080 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
3081 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
3083 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
3084 and `d', other keywords allowed.
3085 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
3087 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
3090 * Changes to the C interface
3092 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
3094 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
3095 with "_t". What a concept.
3097 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
3099 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
3101 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
3105 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
3106 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
3108 *** C Functions removed
3110 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
3111 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
3112 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
3113 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
3114 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
3115 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
3116 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
3118 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
3120 Use scm_mem2string instead.
3122 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
3124 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
3126 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
3127 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
3129 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
3131 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
3134 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
3136 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
3138 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
3140 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
3141 Evaluation" in the manual.
3143 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
3145 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
3146 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
3148 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
3150 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
3151 Constructors" in the manual.
3153 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
3155 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
3156 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
3158 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
3160 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
3162 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
3163 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
3164 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
3166 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
3168 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
3170 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
3171 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
3172 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
3175 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
3177 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
3179 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
3180 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
3182 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
3184 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
3185 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
3186 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
3187 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
3189 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
3190 scm_primitive_property_ref
3191 scm_primitive_property_set_x
3192 scm_primitive_property_del_x
3194 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
3195 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
3197 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
3199 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
3200 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
3201 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
3202 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
3204 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
3206 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
3207 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
3208 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
3209 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
3210 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
3211 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
3212 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
3214 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
3215 scm_remember_upto_here
3217 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
3219 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
3221 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
3222 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
3224 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
3226 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
3228 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
3230 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
3232 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
3234 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
3235 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
3236 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
3237 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
3238 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
3239 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
3241 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
3243 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
3245 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
3246 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
3247 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
3249 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
3251 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
3252 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
3253 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
3255 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
3257 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
3258 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
3261 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
3264 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
3265 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
3268 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
3270 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
3272 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
3274 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
3276 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
3278 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
3280 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
3281 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
3282 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
3283 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
3284 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
3285 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
3286 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
3287 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
3288 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
3289 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
3290 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
3291 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
3292 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
3293 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
3294 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
3296 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
3297 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
3298 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
3299 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
3300 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
3301 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
3302 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
3303 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
3304 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
3305 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
3306 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
3307 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
3308 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
3309 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
3310 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
3311 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
3312 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
3313 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
3314 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
3315 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
3316 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
3317 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
3318 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
3319 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
3320 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
3321 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
3322 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
3323 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
3324 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
3326 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
3328 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
3330 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
3331 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
3333 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
3335 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
3337 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
3339 Use scm_string_hash instead.
3341 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
3343 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
3345 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
3347 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
3349 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
3352 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
3353 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
3355 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
3357 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
3359 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
3361 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
3363 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
3365 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
3367 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
3369 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
3372 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
3374 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
3376 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
3378 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
3379 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
3381 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
3382 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
3384 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
3386 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
3387 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
3388 scm_module_define, scm_define.
3390 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
3392 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
3394 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
3395 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
3397 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
3398 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
3399 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
3400 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
3402 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
3403 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
3404 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
3406 Use the new ones from above instead.
3408 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
3410 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
3411 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
3412 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
3414 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
3415 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
3417 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
3418 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
3421 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
3422 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
3424 Use the new functions instead.
3426 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
3429 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
3431 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
3433 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
3436 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
3438 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
3441 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
3443 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
3446 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
3447 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
3448 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
3450 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
3452 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
3453 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
3455 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
3456 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
3457 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
3458 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
3461 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
3463 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
3464 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
3465 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
3466 inexact for an exact.
3468 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
3469 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
3470 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
3473 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
3474 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
3475 accept an inexact argument.
3477 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
3478 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
3480 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
3483 ** New number validation macros:
3484 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
3488 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
3490 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
3491 scm_unprotect_object.
3493 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
3495 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
3497 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
3500 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
3502 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
3506 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
3508 * Changes to the distribution
3510 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
3512 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
3513 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
3514 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
3515 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
3516 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
3517 obtain these programs.
3518 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
3519 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
3521 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
3522 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
3523 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
3524 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
3525 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
3527 However, this approach means that minor differences between
3528 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
3529 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
3530 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
3534 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
3537 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
3538 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
3539 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
3540 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
3542 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
3544 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
3546 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
3547 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
3549 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
3550 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
3552 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
3553 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
3555 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
3556 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
3557 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
3558 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
3560 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
3562 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
3566 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
3567 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
3569 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
3571 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
3572 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
3574 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
3575 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
3576 number of objects of that kind.
3578 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
3580 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
3581 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
3582 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
3583 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
3584 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
3586 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
3588 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
3590 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
3592 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
3595 ** New module (ice-9 time)
3597 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
3599 ** New module (ice-9 history)
3601 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
3603 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3605 ** New command line option --debug
3607 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
3609 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
3611 ** New help facility
3613 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
3614 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
3615 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
3616 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
3617 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
3618 (help) gives this text
3620 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
3621 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
3623 Examples: (help help)
3625 (help "output-string")
3627 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
3629 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
3631 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
3632 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
3635 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
3636 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
3637 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
3640 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
3641 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
3642 use absolute filenames when possible.
3644 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
3645 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
3646 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
3649 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
3651 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
3652 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
3653 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
3654 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
3656 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
3658 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
3660 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
3661 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
3662 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
3664 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
3665 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
3666 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
3668 (read-enable 'positions)
3669 (debug-enable 'debug)
3671 ** Backtraces in scripts
3673 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
3677 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
3679 at the top of the script.
3681 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
3682 The second enables backtraces.)
3684 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
3686 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
3687 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
3688 substantially faster than before.
3690 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
3691 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
3693 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
3694 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
3696 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
3698 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
3699 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
3700 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
3702 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
3703 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
3704 when this hook is run in the future.
3706 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
3707 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
3709 ** Improvements to garbage collector
3711 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
3712 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
3715 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
3716 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
3717 more and more memory for certain programs.)
3719 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
3720 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
3722 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
3723 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
3725 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
3726 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
3727 in order not to need further allocation.)
3729 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
3732 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
3733 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
3734 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
3735 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
3737 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
3739 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
3742 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
3744 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
3747 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
3748 GC in percent of total heap size
3751 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
3752 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
3754 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
3756 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
3757 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
3759 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
3761 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
3762 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
3764 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
3766 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
3767 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
3771 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
3772 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
3774 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
3776 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3778 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
3780 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
3782 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
3784 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
3785 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
3787 (simple-format port message . args)
3788 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
3789 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
3790 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
3791 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
3792 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
3793 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
3794 Does not add a trailing newline."
3796 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
3798 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
3799 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
3801 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
3802 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
3804 ** Deprecated: list*
3806 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
3808 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
3810 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
3811 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
3813 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
3814 is returned as result.
3816 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
3818 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
3820 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
3822 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
3823 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
3826 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
3828 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
3830 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
3831 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
3833 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3835 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
3837 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
3839 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3841 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
3843 Thanks to Greg Badros!
3845 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
3847 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
3848 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
3849 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
3851 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
3854 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
3856 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
3857 the readability of argument checking.
3859 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
3861 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
3863 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
3865 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
3866 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
3867 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
3868 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
3869 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
3870 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
3871 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
3873 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
3875 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
3877 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
3878 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
3880 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
3882 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
3883 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
3886 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
3888 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
3889 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
3890 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
3892 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
3893 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
3894 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
3896 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
3897 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
3898 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
3899 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
3900 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
3901 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
3902 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
3904 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
3905 scm_end_input (object);
3906 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
3907 ptob->flush (object);
3909 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
3910 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
3913 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
3915 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
3917 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
3918 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
3919 removed in a future version.
3921 ** The format of error message strings has changed
3923 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
3924 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
3925 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
3926 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
3928 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
3929 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
3931 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
3934 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
3936 in your configure.in.
3938 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
3943 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
3949 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
3951 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
3955 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
3956 (define make-message string-append)
3958 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
3960 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
3964 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
3969 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
3973 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
3975 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
3976 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
3978 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
3980 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
3981 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
3982 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
3983 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
3984 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
3985 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
3987 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
3988 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
3989 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
3991 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
3992 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
3993 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
3996 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
3997 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
3998 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
3999 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
4000 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
4002 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
4003 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
4004 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
4005 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
4006 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
4007 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
4008 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
4010 Destructors are not yet implemented.
4012 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
4013 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
4014 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
4016 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
4017 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
4018 KEY in the calling thread.
4020 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
4021 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
4022 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
4023 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
4024 associated with the key.
4026 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
4028 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
4029 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
4031 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
4033 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
4034 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
4035 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
4037 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
4039 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
4040 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
4042 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
4044 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
4046 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
4047 returned is undefined.
4049 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
4050 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
4051 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
4053 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
4054 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
4055 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
4057 ** New C level GC hooks
4059 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
4061 scm_before_gc_c_hook
4064 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
4065 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
4066 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
4068 scm_before_mark_c_hook
4069 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
4070 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
4072 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
4073 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
4076 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
4078 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
4079 allocation parameters
4081 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
4082 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
4083 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
4087 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
4088 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
4089 scm_default_max_segment_size
4091 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
4093 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
4094 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
4096 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
4098 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
4099 object and count on the object being protected until
4100 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
4102 The functions also have better time complexity.
4104 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
4105 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
4106 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
4107 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
4108 are no longer needed.
4110 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
4112 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
4113 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
4114 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
4115 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
4117 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
4119 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
4121 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
4123 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
4124 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
4125 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
4126 until this issue has been settled.
4128 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
4130 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
4132 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
4135 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
4137 * Changes to system call interfaces:
4139 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
4140 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
4141 descriptors were checked.
4143 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
4144 atomically written to a pipe.
4146 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
4147 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
4148 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
4149 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
4150 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
4151 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
4152 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
4155 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
4156 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
4157 is changed without calling tzset.
4159 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
4161 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
4162 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
4163 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
4165 (define write-network-long
4166 (lambda (value port)
4167 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
4168 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
4169 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
4171 (define read-network-long
4173 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
4174 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
4175 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
4177 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
4178 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
4180 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
4181 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
4182 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
4183 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
4185 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
4186 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
4187 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
4188 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
4192 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
4194 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4198 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
4199 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
4200 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
4206 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
4207 for a description of available commands.
4209 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
4210 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
4211 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
4213 (debug-enable 'backwards)
4215 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
4216 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
4218 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
4220 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
4222 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
4223 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
4224 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
4225 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
4226 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
4227 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
4230 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
4232 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
4233 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
4234 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
4235 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
4237 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
4238 the file and should not be affected by this change.
4240 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
4242 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4244 ** Readline support has changed again.
4246 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
4247 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
4248 to activate readline is now
4250 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
4253 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
4255 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
4256 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
4257 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
4260 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
4261 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
4262 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
4265 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
4266 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
4267 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
4268 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
4269 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
4270 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
4272 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
4273 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
4275 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
4277 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
4278 object it receives is the same string passed to
4279 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
4280 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
4281 string, not the suffix.
4283 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
4284 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
4285 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
4287 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
4289 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
4290 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
4291 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
4292 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
4295 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
4297 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
4299 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
4300 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
4301 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
4302 appear from left to right.
4304 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
4307 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
4309 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
4310 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
4312 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
4316 *** New function: hook? OBJ
4318 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
4320 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
4322 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
4323 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
4324 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
4326 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
4328 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
4330 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
4332 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
4335 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
4337 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
4338 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
4339 mentioning it here anyway.
4341 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
4343 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
4344 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
4345 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
4346 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
4349 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
4351 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
4353 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
4355 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
4356 otherwise return #f.
4358 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
4360 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
4361 returned by `opendir'.
4363 ** New function: using-readline?
4365 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
4367 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
4369 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
4370 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
4372 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4374 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
4376 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
4377 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
4378 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
4380 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
4382 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
4383 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
4385 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
4387 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
4388 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
4389 documentation slots are not yet used.
4391 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
4393 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
4394 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
4395 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
4400 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
4401 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
4402 (string-append x y))
4404 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
4405 can also be used for concatenating strings.
4407 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
4408 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
4409 be made in a clean way.]
4411 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
4413 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
4415 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
4417 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
4418 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
4420 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
4422 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
4424 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
4426 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
4428 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
4429 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
4430 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
4431 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
4434 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
4436 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
4438 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
4440 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
4442 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
4443 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
4445 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
4447 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
4449 Evaluates the body of a special form.
4451 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
4453 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
4454 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
4455 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
4456 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
4457 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
4458 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
4460 This should not make any difference for most users.
4462 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
4464 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
4465 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
4467 *** New functions for applying generic functions
4469 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
4470 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
4471 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
4472 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
4473 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
4475 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
4477 It is now replaced by:
4479 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
4481 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
4482 binds a variable named NAME to it.
4484 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
4486 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
4487 This might change when we get the new module system.
4489 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
4493 Changes since Guile 1.3:
4495 * Changes to mailing lists
4497 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
4499 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
4502 * Changes to the distribution
4504 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
4506 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
4507 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
4508 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
4509 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
4510 you explicitly specify it.
4512 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
4513 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
4514 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
4515 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
4516 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
4519 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
4520 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
4521 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
4522 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
4524 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
4525 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
4526 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
4529 You can activate the readline support by issuing
4531 (use-modules (readline-activator))
4534 from your ".guile" file, for example.
4536 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4538 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
4539 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
4540 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
4541 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
4543 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
4544 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
4547 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4549 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
4550 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
4551 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
4552 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
4553 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
4554 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
4555 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
4556 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
4568 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
4569 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
4570 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
4571 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
4572 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
4577 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
4578 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
4586 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
4591 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
4592 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
4595 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
4596 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
4597 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
4598 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
4600 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
4602 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
4604 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
4605 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
4607 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
4609 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
4611 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
4612 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
4614 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
4617 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
4619 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
4621 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
4623 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
4625 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
4627 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
4629 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
4630 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
4631 when the hook was created.
4633 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
4634 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
4635 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
4636 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
4637 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
4638 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
4639 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
4640 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
4641 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
4643 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
4644 the dlopen family of functions.
4646 ** New function `provided?'
4648 - Function: provided? FEATURE
4649 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
4650 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
4651 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
4653 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
4655 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
4656 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
4657 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
4658 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
4661 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
4662 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
4663 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
4664 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
4666 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
4667 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
4668 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
4671 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
4672 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
4673 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
4674 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
4675 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
4676 but with the flag set.
4678 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
4680 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
4681 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
4683 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
4684 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
4685 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
4686 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
4687 available Scheme format implementations.
4689 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
4690 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
4691 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
4692 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
4693 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
4694 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
4695 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
4696 output is to the current error port if available by the
4697 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
4700 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
4701 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
4702 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
4703 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
4704 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
4705 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
4706 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
4707 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
4709 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
4710 be executed at a time.
4713 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
4715 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
4716 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
4717 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
4719 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
4720 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
4721 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
4722 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
4723 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
4724 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
4725 general form of a directive is:
4727 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
4729 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
4731 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
4733 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
4734 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
4735 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
4738 Any (print as `display' does).
4742 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
4746 S-expression (print as `write' does).
4750 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
4756 print number sign always.
4759 print comma separated.
4761 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
4767 print number sign always.
4770 print comma separated.
4772 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
4778 print number sign always.
4781 print comma separated.
4783 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
4789 print number sign always.
4792 print comma separated.
4794 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
4799 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
4803 print a number as a Roman numeral.
4806 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
4809 print a number as an ordinal English number.
4812 print a number as a cardinal English number.
4817 prints `y' and `ies'.
4820 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
4823 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
4828 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
4832 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
4835 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
4836 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
4838 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4841 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
4842 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
4844 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4847 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
4849 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
4851 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4854 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
4856 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
4858 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4861 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
4864 The sign appears before the padding.
4872 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
4874 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
4879 print N page separators.
4889 newline is ignored, white space left.
4892 newline is left, white space ignored.
4897 relative tabulation.
4903 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
4905 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
4908 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
4910 converts by `string-capitalize'.
4913 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
4916 converts by `string-upcase'.
4919 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
4921 jumps N arguments forward.
4924 jumps 1 argument backward.
4927 jumps N arguments backward.
4930 jumps to the 0th argument.
4933 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
4935 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
4936 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
4938 take argument from N.
4941 true test conditional.
4944 if-else-then conditional.
4950 default clause follows.
4953 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
4955 at most N iterations.
4958 args from next arg (a list of lists).
4961 args from the rest of arguments.
4964 args from the rest args (lists).
4975 aborts if N <= M <= K
4977 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
4980 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
4983 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
4989 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
4991 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
4993 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
4994 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
4995 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
4996 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
4997 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
4998 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
5002 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
5006 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
5012 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
5015 Print a `#\space' character
5017 print N `#\space' characters.
5020 Print a `#\tab' character
5022 print N `#\tab' characters.
5025 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
5026 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
5027 must be a positive decimal number.
5030 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
5031 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
5032 be processed by `read'.
5035 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
5036 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
5037 be processed by `read'.
5040 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
5043 prints format version.
5046 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
5047 and format it accordingly.
5049 *** Configuration Variables
5051 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
5052 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
5053 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
5054 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
5057 format:symbol-case-conv
5058 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
5059 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
5060 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
5061 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
5062 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
5064 format:iobj-case-conv
5065 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
5066 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
5069 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
5072 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
5078 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
5079 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
5080 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
5081 `format' padding style.
5084 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
5085 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
5086 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
5087 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
5091 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
5092 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
5093 directive parameters or modifiers)).
5096 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
5097 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
5098 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
5099 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
5100 parameters or modifiers)).
5103 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
5105 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
5107 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
5108 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
5110 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
5111 string-downcase! functions.
5113 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
5114 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
5116 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
5119 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
5122 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
5123 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
5125 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
5127 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
5128 the symbol had be read by `read'.
5130 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
5131 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
5132 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
5133 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
5134 would if STRING were input.
5136 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
5138 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
5139 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
5140 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
5141 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
5144 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
5146 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
5147 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
5150 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
5152 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
5153 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
5155 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
5156 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
5158 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
5159 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
5160 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
5161 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
5163 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
5164 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
5166 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
5167 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
5168 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
5170 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
5171 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
5173 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
5174 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
5175 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
5176 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
5177 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
5179 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
5180 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
5181 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
5182 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
5183 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
5184 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
5186 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
5187 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
5188 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
5191 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
5192 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
5193 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
5194 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
5195 the following grammar:
5196 ((apples (single-char #\a))
5197 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
5198 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
5199 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
5200 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
5201 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
5202 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
5203 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
5204 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
5205 last option in its combination)
5207 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
5208 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
5209 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
5210 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
5212 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
5213 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
5214 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
5216 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
5217 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
5218 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
5220 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
5221 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
5222 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
5223 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
5224 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
5225 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
5226 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
5227 ordinary argument strings.
5229 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
5230 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
5231 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
5232 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
5234 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
5235 as a list, associated with the empty list.
5237 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
5238 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
5239 - a required option is omitted
5240 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
5241 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
5242 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
5243 - an option predicate fails
5248 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
5251 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
5252 (verbose (required? #f)
5255 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
5256 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
5257 (predicate ,string?))))
5259 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
5260 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
5262 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
5263 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
5264 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
5265 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
5268 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
5270 It will be removed in a few releases.
5272 ** New syntax: lambda*
5273 ** New syntax: define*
5274 ** New syntax: define*-public
5275 ** New syntax: defmacro*
5276 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
5277 Guile now supports optional arguments.
5279 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
5280 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
5281 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
5282 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
5283 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
5285 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
5286 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
5287 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
5289 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
5291 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
5292 and examples for `lambda*':
5295 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
5297 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
5298 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
5299 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
5300 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
5301 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
5302 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
5303 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
5304 can be checked with the bound? macro.
5306 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
5308 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
5309 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
5310 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
5311 are given as keywords are bound to values.
5313 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
5314 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
5315 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
5316 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
5317 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
5318 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
5319 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
5320 and until the procedure is called.
5322 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
5324 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
5325 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
5326 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
5327 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
5328 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
5329 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
5330 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
5331 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
5332 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
5333 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
5335 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
5336 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
5337 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
5338 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
5341 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
5343 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
5344 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
5345 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
5346 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
5348 ** New syntax: and-let*
5349 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
5351 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
5352 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
5353 (<variable> <expression>)
5356 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
5357 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
5358 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
5361 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
5362 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
5363 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
5364 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
5365 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
5366 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
5367 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
5369 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
5370 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
5371 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
5372 shadow earlier bindings.
5374 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
5376 ** New sorting functions
5378 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
5379 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
5380 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
5381 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
5383 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
5384 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
5387 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
5388 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
5389 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
5391 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
5392 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
5393 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
5394 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
5396 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
5397 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
5398 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
5399 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
5400 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
5403 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
5404 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
5405 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
5406 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
5407 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
5408 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
5410 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
5411 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
5412 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
5414 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
5415 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
5416 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
5419 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
5420 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
5421 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
5423 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
5424 Added for compatibility with scsh.
5426 ** New built-in random number support
5428 *** New function: random N [STATE]
5429 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
5430 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
5431 returned have a uniform distribution.
5433 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
5434 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
5435 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
5436 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
5437 effect of the `random' operation.
5439 *** New variable: *random-state*
5440 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
5441 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
5442 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
5443 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
5444 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
5447 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
5448 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
5449 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
5450 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
5451 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
5453 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
5454 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
5455 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
5456 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
5457 initialized using SEED.
5459 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
5460 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
5461 range between 0 and 1.
5463 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
5464 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
5465 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
5466 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
5467 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
5468 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
5469 or a uniform vector of doubles.
5471 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
5472 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
5473 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
5474 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
5475 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
5476 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
5478 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
5479 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
5480 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
5481 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
5483 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
5484 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
5485 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
5486 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
5488 *** New function: random:exp STATE
5489 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
5490 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
5492 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
5494 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
5497 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
5498 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
5501 ** New function: make-guardian
5502 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
5503 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
5504 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
5505 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
5506 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
5508 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
5509 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
5510 one object if at all.
5512 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
5513 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
5514 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
5516 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
5517 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
5518 read again in last-in first-out order.
5520 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
5521 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
5523 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
5525 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
5526 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
5527 file position is used.
5529 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
5530 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
5531 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
5533 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
5534 redefined using seek.
5536 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
5537 size is not supplied.
5539 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
5540 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
5542 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
5543 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
5545 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
5547 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
5548 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
5549 and returns the contents as a single string.
5551 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
5552 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
5553 lists in serial order.
5555 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
5556 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
5557 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
5559 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
5560 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
5561 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
5562 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
5564 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
5565 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
5566 and #f if an error occured.
5568 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
5570 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
5571 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
5572 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
5573 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
5575 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
5577 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
5580 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
5582 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
5585 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5589 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
5590 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
5592 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
5593 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
5597 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5599 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
5601 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
5602 binds a variable named NAME to it.
5604 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
5606 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
5607 might change when we get the new module system.
5609 ** The smob interface
5611 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
5612 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
5614 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
5616 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
5620 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
5621 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
5622 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
5623 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
5624 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
5625 will be freed by the default free function.
5627 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
5628 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
5629 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
5630 `scm_make_smob_type'.
5632 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
5633 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
5634 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
5635 `scm_make_smob_type'.
5637 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
5639 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
5640 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
5644 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
5645 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
5646 `scm_make_smob_type'.
5648 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
5649 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
5650 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
5651 `scm_make_smob_type'.
5653 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
5654 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
5655 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
5657 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
5658 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
5659 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
5660 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
5662 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
5663 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
5664 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
5666 *** scm_newptob has been removed
5670 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
5672 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
5673 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
5674 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
5676 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
5677 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
5678 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
5680 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
5681 a string port's buffer.
5683 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
5684 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
5685 function pointers which together define the current random number
5686 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
5687 number library functions.
5689 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
5692 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
5693 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
5696 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
5697 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
5699 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
5700 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
5702 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
5703 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
5706 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
5707 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
5708 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
5709 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
5711 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
5712 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
5713 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
5714 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
5715 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
5716 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
5717 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
5719 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
5720 by libguile and the application.
5722 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
5723 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
5724 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
5725 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
5727 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
5728 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
5730 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
5731 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
5732 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
5734 ** Random number library functions
5735 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
5736 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
5737 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
5739 The default random state is stored in:
5741 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
5742 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
5743 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
5748 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
5750 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
5751 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
5752 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
5753 isn't a random state.
5755 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
5756 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
5758 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
5759 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
5760 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
5761 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
5763 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
5764 Return 32 random bits.
5766 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
5767 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
5769 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
5770 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
5772 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
5773 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
5775 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
5776 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
5778 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
5779 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
5780 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
5784 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
5786 * Changes to the distribution
5788 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
5789 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
5790 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
5793 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
5794 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
5795 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
5797 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
5798 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
5799 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
5800 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
5803 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
5804 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
5805 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
5807 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5809 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
5811 *** Function: batch-mode?
5813 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
5816 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
5818 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
5819 case has not been implemented.
5821 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
5822 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
5823 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
5826 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
5827 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
5829 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
5831 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5833 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
5835 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
5836 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
5839 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
5840 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
5841 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
5842 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
5845 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
5847 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
5848 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
5849 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
5850 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
5851 find those libraries.
5853 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
5854 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
5857 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
5859 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
5860 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
5861 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
5862 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
5864 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
5865 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
5866 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
5870 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
5872 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
5873 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
5874 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
5877 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
5878 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
5879 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
5880 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
5882 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
5883 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
5886 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
5887 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
5888 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
5889 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
5890 compiler where to find the libraries.
5892 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
5893 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
5894 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
5896 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
5897 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
5898 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
5899 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
5900 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
5904 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5906 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
5907 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
5908 internationalization support.
5910 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
5911 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
5912 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
5913 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
5914 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
5916 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
5917 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
5918 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
5919 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
5920 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
5922 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
5923 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
5924 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
5925 any GNU mirror site.
5927 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
5929 ** New function: add-history STRING
5930 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
5931 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
5932 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
5934 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
5936 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
5937 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
5938 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
5941 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
5942 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
5943 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
5945 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
5947 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
5950 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
5951 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
5954 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
5955 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
5956 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
5957 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
5958 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
5959 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
5961 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
5962 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
5963 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
5964 of the form mentioned above.
5966 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
5967 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
5968 returned in the special `rest' list.
5970 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
5971 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
5973 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
5975 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
5977 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
5979 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
5980 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
5981 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
5982 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
5983 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
5984 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
5985 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
5986 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
5989 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
5991 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
5993 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
5994 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
5997 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
5998 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
5999 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
6003 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
6004 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
6005 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
6006 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
6007 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
6008 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
6009 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
6010 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
6013 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
6015 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
6016 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
6017 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
6019 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
6021 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
6022 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
6024 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
6025 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
6026 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
6028 Why do we have this function?
6029 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
6030 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
6031 primitive, and display it differently, and
6032 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
6033 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
6036 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
6037 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
6040 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
6041 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
6042 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
6043 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
6045 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
6046 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
6049 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
6050 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
6052 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
6054 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
6055 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
6056 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
6057 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
6058 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
6059 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
6060 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
6063 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
6065 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
6066 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
6068 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
6069 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
6070 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
6071 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
6072 properly continue the print chain.
6074 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
6075 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
6076 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
6077 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
6078 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
6079 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
6080 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
6081 print-state, it is simply ignored.
6083 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
6084 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
6085 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
6086 safest to not check for these pairs.
6088 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
6089 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
6090 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
6091 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
6093 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
6095 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
6096 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
6098 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
6100 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
6102 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
6103 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
6104 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
6106 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
6107 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
6108 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
6110 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
6111 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
6112 the following functions and macros:
6114 Function: make-fluid
6116 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
6117 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
6118 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
6119 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
6120 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
6122 Function: fluid? OBJ
6124 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
6126 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
6127 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
6129 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
6130 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
6132 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
6134 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
6135 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
6136 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
6137 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
6138 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
6139 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
6140 modified by `with-fluids*'.
6142 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
6144 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
6145 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
6146 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
6147 should evaluate to a fluid.
6149 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
6151 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
6152 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
6153 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
6154 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
6155 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
6157 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
6160 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
6162 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
6164 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
6166 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
6169 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
6170 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
6171 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
6172 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
6173 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
6176 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
6177 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
6178 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
6180 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
6181 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
6182 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
6184 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
6185 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
6186 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
6187 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
6189 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
6190 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
6191 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
6192 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
6194 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
6195 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
6196 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
6197 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
6199 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
6200 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
6201 their revealed counts set to zero.
6203 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
6204 Returns an integer file descriptor.
6206 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
6207 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
6209 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
6210 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
6212 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
6213 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
6214 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
6216 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
6217 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
6218 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
6220 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
6221 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
6222 default environment inherited by child processes.
6224 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
6225 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
6226 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
6228 The return value is unspecified.
6230 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
6231 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
6232 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
6233 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
6234 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
6236 The return value is unspecified.
6238 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
6239 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
6247 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
6248 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
6251 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
6254 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
6255 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
6256 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
6258 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
6259 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
6260 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
6261 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
6264 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
6265 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
6267 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
6268 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
6269 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
6270 the `environ' procedure.
6272 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
6273 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
6276 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
6277 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
6279 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
6280 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
6281 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
6282 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
6284 *** procedure: times
6285 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
6286 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
6287 return a selected component:
6290 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
6294 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
6297 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
6301 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
6302 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
6306 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
6307 terminated child processes.
6309 ** Removed: list-length
6310 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
6311 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
6313 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
6315 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
6317 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
6319 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
6320 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
6321 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
6322 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
6324 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
6325 extra complexity it introduces.
6327 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
6328 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
6330 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
6331 variable to any non-empty value.
6333 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
6334 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
6336 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6338 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
6339 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
6341 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
6343 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
6344 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
6346 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
6348 ** vector handling routines
6350 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
6351 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
6352 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
6353 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
6354 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
6356 ** pair and list routines
6358 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
6361 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
6363 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
6366 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6368 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
6370 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
6371 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
6372 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
6373 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
6374 site-specific initialization code.
6376 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
6377 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
6378 initialization processes.
6380 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
6381 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
6382 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
6383 initialized properly.
6385 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
6386 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
6387 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
6389 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
6390 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
6391 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
6392 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
6393 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
6395 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
6397 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
6398 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
6399 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
6400 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
6401 objects the smob refers to get marked.
6403 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
6404 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
6405 which look like this:
6408 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
6410 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
6411 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
6414 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
6415 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
6418 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
6420 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
6421 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
6422 you will need to change your functions slightly.
6424 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
6425 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
6426 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
6427 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
6428 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
6430 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
6431 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
6433 int (*free) (SCM port);
6434 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
6435 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
6436 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
6440 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
6441 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
6442 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
6444 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
6447 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
6448 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
6449 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
6451 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
6452 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
6453 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
6456 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
6460 struct timeval *timeout);
6462 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
6463 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
6464 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
6465 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
6466 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
6467 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
6469 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
6470 scm_catch_body_t body,
6472 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
6475 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
6476 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
6477 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
6478 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
6479 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
6480 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
6482 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
6484 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
6487 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
6488 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
6489 spawning threads from application C code.
6491 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
6492 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
6493 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
6494 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
6495 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
6496 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
6498 ** Removed functions:
6500 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
6501 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
6503 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
6505 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
6506 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
6508 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
6510 ** mbstrings are now removed
6512 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
6513 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
6515 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
6517 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
6518 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
6519 their new names and arguments:
6521 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
6522 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
6523 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
6524 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
6527 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
6529 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
6531 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
6534 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
6536 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
6537 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
6538 pass a #f arg to catch.
6540 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
6542 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
6543 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
6546 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
6547 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
6548 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
6549 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
6550 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
6551 reclaim its storage.
6553 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
6554 worrying that some other function you call will call
6555 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
6556 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
6557 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
6558 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
6561 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
6563 * Changes to the distribution
6565 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
6566 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
6569 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
6570 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
6572 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
6573 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
6575 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
6577 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
6578 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
6579 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
6581 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
6583 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
6584 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
6585 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
6586 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
6587 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
6588 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
6590 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
6591 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
6592 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
6595 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
6596 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
6597 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
6598 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
6600 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
6601 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
6602 libraries to your link command:
6604 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
6605 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
6606 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
6607 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
6609 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
6610 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
6611 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
6613 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
6615 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
6616 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
6619 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
6621 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
6622 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
6623 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
6624 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
6625 searched is system dependent.
6627 (dynamic-object? VAL)
6629 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
6631 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
6633 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
6634 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
6636 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
6638 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
6639 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
6640 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
6641 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
6642 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
6645 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
6647 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
6648 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
6649 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
6650 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
6651 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
6653 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
6655 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
6656 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
6658 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
6660 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
6661 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
6662 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
6665 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
6667 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
6668 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
6669 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
6670 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
6672 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
6673 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
6675 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
6677 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
6678 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
6680 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
6682 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
6683 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
6691 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
6693 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
6694 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
6695 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
6696 a more informative way.
6698 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
6699 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
6700 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
6701 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
6702 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
6703 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
6705 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
6706 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
6709 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
6710 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
6711 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
6714 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
6715 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
6716 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
6717 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
6718 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
6719 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
6721 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
6722 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
6723 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
6724 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
6727 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
6728 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
6729 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
6730 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
6731 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
6732 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
6734 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
6735 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
6736 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
6737 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
6738 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
6740 *** regexp functions
6742 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
6743 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
6744 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
6746 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
6747 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
6748 with SCSH regular expressions.
6750 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
6751 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
6752 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
6753 position of STR at which to begin matching.
6755 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
6756 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
6757 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
6758 `string-match' returns `#f'.
6760 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
6761 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
6762 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
6763 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
6764 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
6765 match strings against the compiled regexp.
6767 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
6768 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
6769 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
6770 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
6771 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
6773 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
6775 **** Constant: regexp/extended
6776 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
6777 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
6778 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
6780 **** Constant: regexp/icase
6781 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
6782 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
6784 **** Constant: regexp/newline
6785 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
6787 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
6790 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
6791 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
6792 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
6794 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
6795 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
6796 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
6798 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
6799 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
6800 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
6801 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
6802 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
6805 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
6807 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
6808 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
6809 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
6810 used when different portions of a string are passed to
6811 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
6812 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
6814 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
6815 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
6816 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
6818 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
6819 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
6822 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
6823 and replace them with the contents of another string.
6825 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
6826 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
6827 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
6828 may be one of the following arguments:
6830 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
6832 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
6834 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
6835 the regexp match is written.
6837 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
6838 following the regexp match is written.
6840 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
6841 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
6844 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
6845 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
6846 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
6847 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
6848 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
6849 which should be matched against this regular expression.
6851 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
6854 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
6855 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
6856 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
6857 written out to PORT.
6859 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
6860 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
6861 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
6862 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
6863 will return after processing a single match.
6865 *** Match Structures
6867 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
6868 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
6869 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
6870 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
6871 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
6872 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
6875 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
6876 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
6877 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
6878 information about the original target string that was matched against a
6879 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
6881 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
6882 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
6883 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
6885 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
6886 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
6887 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
6888 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
6889 number N did not match, return `#f'.
6891 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
6892 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
6894 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
6895 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
6897 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
6898 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
6900 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
6901 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
6903 **** Function: match:count MATCH
6904 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
6905 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
6906 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
6908 **** Function: match:string MATCH
6909 Return the original TARGET string.
6911 *** Backslash Escapes
6913 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
6914 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
6915 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
6916 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
6917 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
6918 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
6920 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
6921 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
6922 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
6923 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
6924 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
6925 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
6926 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
6927 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
6929 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
6930 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
6931 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
6932 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
6933 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
6934 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
6935 each match a single backslash in the target string.
6937 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
6938 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
6939 return the resulting string.
6941 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
6942 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
6943 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
6944 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
6945 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
6946 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
6947 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
6948 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
6949 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
6950 translated to the single character `*'.
6952 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
6953 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
6954 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
6955 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
6956 consecutive backslashes:
6958 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
6960 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
6961 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
6962 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
6964 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
6965 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
6966 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
6967 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
6968 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
6969 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
6971 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
6973 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
6974 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
6975 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
6976 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
6977 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
6978 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
6979 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
6980 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
6981 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
6982 cumbersome escape syntax.
6984 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6986 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6988 * Changes to system call interfaces:
6990 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
6993 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
6995 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
6997 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
7000 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
7001 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
7002 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
7003 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
7004 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
7006 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
7007 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
7008 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
7009 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
7010 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
7011 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
7012 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
7015 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
7016 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
7017 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
7020 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
7021 `force-output' on every port open for output.
7023 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
7024 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
7025 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
7026 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
7027 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
7028 installed, you can say:
7030 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
7033 * Changes to the scm_ interface
7035 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
7036 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
7037 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
7038 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
7039 new dynamic roots and threads.
7042 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
7044 * Changes to the distribution.
7046 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
7048 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
7049 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
7050 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
7051 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
7052 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
7053 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
7054 programming language. These are packaged together because the
7055 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
7057 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
7060 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
7061 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
7066 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
7068 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
7069 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
7071 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
7072 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
7073 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
7074 the (command-line) function.
7075 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
7076 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
7077 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
7079 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
7080 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
7081 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
7082 command line arguments
7083 -ds do -s script at this point
7084 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
7085 -h, --help display this help and exit
7086 -v, --version display version information and exit
7087 \ read arguments from following script lines
7089 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
7090 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
7092 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
7095 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
7099 (main (command-line))
7101 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
7103 ekko a speckled gecko
7105 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
7106 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
7107 following list of command-line arguments:
7109 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
7111 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
7112 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
7113 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
7114 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
7115 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
7117 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
7119 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
7121 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
7122 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
7125 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
7126 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
7127 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
7128 SCSH) for circumventing them.
7130 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
7131 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
7132 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
7133 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
7135 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
7139 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
7143 If the user invokes this script as follows:
7145 ekko a speckled gecko
7147 Unix expands this into
7149 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
7151 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
7152 read from the second line of the script, producing:
7154 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
7156 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
7157 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
7159 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
7160 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
7161 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
7162 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
7163 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
7164 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
7165 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
7166 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
7167 it only terminates the argument list.)
7168 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
7169 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
7170 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
7171 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
7172 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
7173 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
7174 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
7175 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
7177 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
7179 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
7180 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
7181 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
7182 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
7183 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
7185 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
7186 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
7187 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
7189 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
7191 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
7192 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
7193 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
7194 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
7197 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
7198 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
7199 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
7201 * Changes to Scheme functions
7203 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
7204 and disabled by default.
7206 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
7207 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
7208 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
7209 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
7211 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
7213 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
7215 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
7216 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
7218 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
7219 (read-set! keywords #f)
7221 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
7222 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
7223 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
7226 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
7227 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
7228 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
7231 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
7232 support for Scheme functions.
7234 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
7235 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
7236 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
7237 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
7240 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
7241 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
7242 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
7245 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
7246 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
7247 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
7250 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
7251 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
7252 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
7253 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
7254 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
7255 display the result as a prompt.
7256 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
7258 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
7259 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
7260 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
7263 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
7264 procedure of zero arguments.
7266 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
7267 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
7268 argument is bound in the current module.
7270 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
7271 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
7272 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
7273 public bindings into the current module.
7275 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
7276 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
7278 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
7279 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
7281 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
7282 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
7284 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
7285 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
7287 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
7288 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
7290 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
7291 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
7292 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
7293 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
7294 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
7296 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
7297 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
7298 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
7299 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
7301 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
7304 ** Changes to I/O functions
7306 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
7307 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
7308 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
7310 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
7311 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
7312 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
7314 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
7315 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
7317 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
7318 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
7319 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
7320 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
7322 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
7324 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
7325 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
7327 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
7328 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
7329 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
7330 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
7331 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
7334 'trim omit delimiter from result
7335 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
7336 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
7337 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
7339 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
7341 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
7342 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
7344 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
7345 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
7346 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
7347 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
7348 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
7350 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
7351 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
7352 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
7354 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
7355 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
7356 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
7357 above, and defaults to 'peek.
7359 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
7360 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
7362 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
7363 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
7365 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
7367 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
7368 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
7369 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
7370 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
7371 a delimiting character.
7372 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
7374 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
7375 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
7376 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
7377 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
7378 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
7379 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
7381 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
7382 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
7384 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
7385 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
7386 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
7388 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
7389 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
7390 the array to read and write.
7392 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
7393 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
7396 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
7398 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
7401 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
7402 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
7403 Values for COMMAND are:
7405 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
7406 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
7407 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
7408 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
7409 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
7410 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
7411 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
7412 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
7414 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
7416 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
7417 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
7418 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
7419 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
7420 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
7421 corresponding return set will be the same.
7423 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
7426 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
7427 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
7428 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
7429 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
7430 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
7431 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
7432 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
7433 special file being created.
7435 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
7436 clashing with various SCSH forks.
7438 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
7439 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
7440 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
7441 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
7442 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
7443 and originating address.
7445 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
7446 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
7447 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
7449 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
7452 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
7453 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
7456 (status:exit-val STATUS)
7457 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
7458 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
7459 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
7460 this function returns #f.
7462 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
7463 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
7464 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
7467 (status:term-sig STATUS)
7468 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
7469 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
7472 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
7473 a valid STATUS value.
7475 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
7477 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
7478 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
7480 Component Accessor Setter
7481 ========================= ============ ============
7482 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
7483 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
7484 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
7485 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
7486 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
7487 year tm:year set-tm:year
7488 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
7489 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
7490 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
7491 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
7492 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
7494 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
7495 describing the host system:
7498 ============================================== ================
7499 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
7500 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
7501 release level of the operating system utsname:release
7502 version level of the operating system utsname:version
7503 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
7505 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
7506 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
7507 system's user database:
7510 ====================== =================
7511 user name passwd:name
7512 user password passwd:passwd
7515 real name passwd:gecos
7516 home directory passwd:dir
7517 shell program passwd:shell
7519 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
7520 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
7521 system's group database:
7524 ======================= ============
7525 group name group:name
7526 group password group:passwd
7528 group members group:mem
7530 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
7531 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
7535 ========================= ===============
7536 official name of host hostent:name
7537 alias list hostent:aliases
7538 host address type hostent:addrtype
7539 length of address hostent:length
7540 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
7542 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
7543 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
7547 ========================= ===============
7548 official name of net netent:name
7549 alias list netent:aliases
7550 net number type netent:addrtype
7551 net number netent:net
7553 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
7554 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
7558 ========================= ===============
7559 official protocol name protoent:name
7560 alias list protoent:aliases
7561 protocol number protoent:proto
7563 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
7564 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
7568 ========================= ===============
7569 official service name servent:name
7570 alias list servent:aliases
7571 port number servent:port
7572 protocol to use servent:proto
7574 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
7575 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
7578 ======================================== ===============
7579 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
7580 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
7581 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
7582 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
7584 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
7585 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
7586 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
7588 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
7589 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
7591 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
7592 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
7594 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
7595 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
7597 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
7599 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
7601 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
7602 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
7603 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
7605 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
7606 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
7607 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
7608 return the remaining characters as a string.
7610 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
7611 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
7612 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
7614 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
7616 * Changes to the gh_ interface
7618 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
7621 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
7624 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
7625 and returns the array
7627 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
7628 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
7629 the user to interpret the data both ways.
7631 * Changes to the scm_ interface
7633 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
7634 symbol's value from C code:
7636 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
7637 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
7638 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
7639 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
7641 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
7642 without assigning them a value.
7644 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
7645 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
7646 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
7648 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
7649 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
7650 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
7652 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
7653 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
7655 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
7656 doesn't actually care about that.
7658 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
7659 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
7660 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
7662 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
7663 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
7664 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
7665 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
7666 which we have just created and initialized.
7668 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
7669 should one occur. We call it like this:
7670 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
7672 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
7673 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
7674 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
7675 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
7676 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
7677 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
7680 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
7681 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
7682 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
7683 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
7684 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
7685 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
7686 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
7689 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
7690 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
7691 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
7692 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
7693 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
7696 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
7697 scm_internal_catch, except:
7699 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
7700 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
7701 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
7702 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
7705 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
7706 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
7707 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
7709 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
7710 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
7711 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
7712 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
7715 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
7716 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
7717 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
7719 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
7720 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
7721 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
7722 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
7723 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
7725 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
7726 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
7727 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
7729 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
7730 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
7731 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
7733 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
7734 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
7736 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
7737 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
7738 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
7741 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
7742 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
7743 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
7744 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
7745 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
7746 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
7747 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
7750 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
7751 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
7753 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
7754 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
7755 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
7756 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
7757 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
7760 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
7761 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
7763 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
7764 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
7767 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
7768 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
7770 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
7773 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
7774 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
7775 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
7776 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
7777 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
7778 given the following arguments:
7780 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
7782 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
7784 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
7786 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
7789 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
7790 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
7791 command-line arguments.
7793 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
7794 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
7795 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
7796 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
7797 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
7798 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
7801 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
7804 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
7805 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
7807 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
7808 rearranged slightly. They are now:
7810 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
7811 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
7812 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
7813 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
7815 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
7816 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
7818 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
7819 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
7820 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
7821 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
7823 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
7824 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
7826 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
7827 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
7829 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
7831 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
7832 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
7833 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
7836 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
7837 returns a port instead of an FD object.
7839 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
7840 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
7845 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
7848 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
7850 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
7851 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
7852 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
7853 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
7855 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
7857 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
7859 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
7860 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
7861 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
7862 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
7863 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
7864 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
7865 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
7866 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
7867 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
7868 for more information.
7870 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
7871 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
7873 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
7874 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
7875 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
7876 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
7877 following two lines at the top of the file:
7879 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
7882 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
7883 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
7884 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
7886 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
7888 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
7890 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
7893 (display (car args))
7894 (if (pair? (cdr args))
7896 (loop (cdr args)))))
7899 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
7900 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
7901 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
7902 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
7903 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
7904 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
7908 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
7911 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
7914 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
7916 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
7917 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
7918 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
7919 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
7920 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
7923 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
7924 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
7925 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
7926 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
7927 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
7930 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
7933 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
7934 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
7935 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
7938 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
7939 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
7940 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
7942 to see a backtrace, and
7943 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
7944 to see them by default.
7948 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
7950 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
7952 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
7953 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
7956 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
7957 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
7958 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
7959 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
7962 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
7963 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
7964 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
7965 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
7966 functions which inspired them.
7968 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
7969 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
7973 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
7975 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
7977 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
7978 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
7981 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
7982 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
7983 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
7985 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
7986 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
7987 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
7988 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
7989 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
7991 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
7993 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
7994 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
7995 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
7998 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
8001 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
8003 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
8004 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
8005 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
8006 above should serve their purposes.
8008 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
8009 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
8010 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
8011 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
8013 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
8016 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
8017 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
8018 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
8019 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
8021 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
8022 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
8023 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
8024 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
8026 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
8027 for the `read' function.
8030 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
8031 to that of `integer?'.
8033 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
8034 use the R4RS names for these functions.
8036 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
8037 it simply returns the object's property list.
8039 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
8040 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
8041 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
8042 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
8044 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
8046 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
8049 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
8051 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
8052 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
8054 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
8056 void (*main_func) (),
8059 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
8060 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
8061 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
8062 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
8063 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
8065 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
8066 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
8067 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
8068 know which arguments have been processed.
8070 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
8071 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
8072 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
8073 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
8074 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
8076 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
8077 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
8078 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
8079 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
8080 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
8081 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
8082 people from making that mistake.
8084 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
8085 convenient ways to override these when desired.
8087 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
8089 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
8093 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
8096 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
8097 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
8098 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
8099 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
8102 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
8103 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
8104 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
8105 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
8108 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
8109 have been added to the Guile library.
8111 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
8112 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
8113 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
8116 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
8117 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
8118 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
8120 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
8121 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
8122 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
8123 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
8124 argument from the list.
8127 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
8130 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
8131 null-terminated string, and returns it.
8133 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
8134 to a Scheme port object.
8136 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
8137 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
8142 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
8144 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
8145 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
8146 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
8147 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
8148 code as a special datatype.
8150 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
8151 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
8152 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
8153 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
8154 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
8157 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
8158 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
8159 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
8160 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
8161 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
8163 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
8166 Copyright information:
8168 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
8170 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
8171 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
8172 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
8173 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
8175 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
8176 of this document, or of portions of it,
8177 under the above conditions, provided also that they
8178 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
8183 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"