1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
8 Note: During the 1.9 series, we will keep an incremental NEWS for the
9 latest prerelease, and a full NEWS corresponding to 1.8 -> 2.0.
11 Changes since the 1.9.15 prerelease:
13 ** New syntax: define-once
15 `define-once' is like Lisp's `defvar': it creates a toplevel binding,
16 but only if one does not exist already.
18 ** Improved exactness handling for complex number parsing
20 When parsing non-real complex numbers, exactness specifiers are now
21 applied to each component, as is done in PLT Scheme. For complex
22 numbers written in rectangular form, exactness specifiers are applied
23 to the real and imaginary parts before calling scm_make_rectangular.
24 For complex numbers written in polar form, exactness specifiers are
25 applied to the magnitude and angle before calling scm_make_polar.
27 Previously, exactness specifiers were applied to the number as a whole
28 _after_ calling scm_make_rectangular or scm_make_polar.
30 For example, (string->number "#i5.0+0i") now does the equivalent of:
32 (make-rectangular (exact->inexact 5.0) (exact->inexact 0))
34 which yields 5.0+0.0i. Previously it did the equivalent of:
36 (exact->inexact (make-rectangular 5.0 0))
41 Changes in 1.9.15 (since the 1.9.14 prerelease):
43 ** Formally deprecate omission of port to `format'
45 It used to be that you could omit passing a port to `format', in some
46 cases. This still works, but has been formally deprecated.
50 Noah Lavine and Kan-Ru Chen noticed and fixed a number of embarrassing
51 bugs in object creation, unicode literals in strings, empty function
52 bodies, non-breaking whitespace, and numeric literals.
54 ** `(web ...)' changes
56 *** `parse-uri', `unparse-uri' now called `string->uri', `uri->string'
58 *** `uri-decode' takes `#:encoding' keyword argument, not `#:charset'
60 *** HTTP header representation change
62 Guile properly garbage-collects symbols, so there's no need to read some
63 headers as symbols and some as strings: all header names are symbols
64 now. The same goes for many key-value constructs in headers. Guile
65 parses the challenge/authentication headers now, as well. Header decl
66 objects are no longer exposed to the user.
68 *** Request and response bodies are always bytevectors
70 Reading bodies as latin-1 strings was a cute hack, but not general, so
71 Guile's only official fetch-me-the-body procedures return bytevectors
74 ** New procedures: scm_{to,from}_{utf8,latin1}_symbol{n,}
75 ** New procedures: scm_{to,from}_{utf8,utf32,latin1}_symbol{n,}
77 These new procedures convert to and from string representations in
80 Basically, continue to use locale encoding for user input, user output,
81 or interacting with the C library. Use latin1 for ASCII, and for
82 literals in source code. Use utf8 for interaction with modern libraries
83 which deal in UTF-8. Use utf32 for interaction with utf32-using
84 libraries. Otherwise use scm_to_stringn or scm_from_stringn with a
87 Also, scm_from_latin1_symbol is quite a bit faster now.
89 ** Documentation updates
91 The GOOPS manual saw a lot of work, as well as documentation for the
94 ** Guile uses iconv directly for reading from and writing to ports.
96 In addition to providing faster Unicode I/O (e.g., `display',
97 `read-char'), this change improves error reporting.
99 For instance, the `encoding-error' exception conveys information about
100 the port and character that could not be encoded. Likewise, the new
101 `decoding-error' exception conveys information about the port from which
102 data failed to be decoded, and leaves the port in a known position.
104 ** Source files default to UTF-8.
106 If source files do not specify their encoding via a `coding:' block,
107 the default encoding is UTF-8, instead of being taken from the current
112 Thanks to Mark Harig for many suggestions regarding the manual page,
113 which is getting better.
115 ** Interactive Guile installs the current locale.
117 Instead of leaving the user in the "C" locale, running the Guile REPL
118 installs the current locale. [FIXME xref?]
120 ** `recv!', `recvfrom!', `send', `sendto' now deal in bytevectors
122 These socket procedures now take bytevectors as arguments, instead of
123 strings. There is some deprecated string support, however.
125 ** New foreign API: `define-wrapped-pointer-type', `pointer?'
127 See "Foreign Types", for more.
129 ** Changes and bugfixes in numerics code
131 *** Added two new sets of fast quotient and remainder operators
133 Added two new sets of fast quotient and remainder operator pairs with
134 different semantics than the R5RS operators. They support not only
135 integers, but all reals, including exact rationals and inexact
136 floating point numbers.
138 These procedures accept two real numbers N and D, where the divisor D
139 must be non-zero. `euclidean-quotient' returns the integer Q and
140 `euclidean-remainder' returns the real R such that N = Q*D + R and
141 0 <= R < |D|. `euclidean/' returns both Q and R, and is more
142 efficient than computing each separately. Note that when D > 0,
143 `euclidean-quotient' returns floor(N/D), and when D < 0 it returns
146 `centered-quotient', `centered-remainder', and `centered/' are similar
147 except that the range of remainders is -abs(D/2) <= R < abs(D/2), and
148 `centered-quotient' rounds N/D to the nearest integer.
150 Note that these operators are equivalent to the R6RS integer division
151 operators `div', `mod', `div-and-mod', `div0', `mod0', and
154 *** Complex number changes
156 Guile is now able to represent non-real complex numbers whose
157 imaginary part is an _inexact_ zero (0.0 or -0.0), per R6RS.
158 Previously, such numbers were immediately changed into inexact reals.
160 (real? 0.0+0.0i) now returns #f, per R6RS, although (zero? 0.0+0.0i)
161 still returns #t, per R6RS. (= 0 0.0+0.0i) and (= 0.0 0.0+0.0i) are
162 #t, but the same comparisons using `eqv?' or `equal?' are #f.
164 Like other non-real numbers, these complex numbers with inexact zero
165 imaginary part will raise exceptions is passed to procedures requiring
166 reals, such as `<', `>', `<=', `>=', `min', `max', `positive?',
167 `negative?', `inf?', `nan?', `finite?', etc.
169 **** `make-rectangular' changes
171 scm_make_rectangular `make-rectangular' now returns a real number only
172 if the imaginary part is an _exact_ 0. Previously, it would return a
173 real number if the imaginary part was an inexact zero.
175 scm_c_make_rectangular now always returns a non-real complex number,
176 even if the imaginary part is zero. Previously, it would return a
177 real number if the imaginary part was zero.
179 **** `make-polar' changes
181 scm_make_polar `make-polar' now returns a real number only if the
182 angle or magnitude is an _exact_ 0. If the magnitude is an exact 0,
183 it now returns an exact 0. Previously, it would return a real
184 number if the imaginary part was an inexact zero.
186 scm_c_make_polar now always returns a non-real complex number, even if
187 the imaginary part is 0.0. Previously, it would return a real number
188 if the imaginary part was 0.0.
190 **** `imag-part' changes
192 scm_imag_part `imag-part' now returns an exact 0 if applied to an
193 inexact real number. Previously it returned an inexact zero in this
196 *** `eqv?' and `equal?' now compare numbers equivalently
198 scm_equal_p `equal?' now behaves equivalently to scm_eqv_p `eqv?' for
199 numeric values, per R5RS. Previously, equal? worked differently,
200 e.g. `(equal? 0.0 -0.0)' returned #t but `(eqv? 0.0 -0.0)' returned #f,
201 and `(equal? +nan.0 +nan.0)' returned #f but `(eqv? +nan.0 +nan.0)'
204 *** `(equal? +nan.0 +nan.0)' now returns #t
206 Previously, `(equal? +nan.0 +nan.0)' returned #f, although
207 `(let ((x +nan.0)) (equal? x x))' and `(eqv? +nan.0 +nan.0)'
208 both returned #t. R5RS requires that `equal?' behave like
209 `eqv?' when comparing numbers.
211 *** Change in handling products `*' involving exact 0
213 scm_product `*' now handles exact 0 differently. A product containing
214 an exact 0 now returns an exact 0 if and only if the other arguments
215 are all exact. An inexact zero is returned if and only if the other
216 arguments are all finite but not all exact. If an infinite or NaN
217 value is present, a NaN value is returned. Previously, any product
218 containing an exact 0 yielded an exact 0, regardless of the other
221 *** `expt' and `integer-expt' changes when the base is 0
223 While `(expt 0 0)' is still 1, and `(expt 0 N)' for N > 0 is still
224 zero, `(expt 0 N)' for N < 0 is now a NaN value, and likewise for
225 integer-expt. This is more correct, and conforming to R6RS, but seems
226 to be incompatible with R5RS, which would return 0 for all non-zero
229 *** `expt' and `integer-expt' are more generic, less strict
231 When raising to an exact non-negative integer exponent, `expt' and
232 `integer-expt' are now able to exponentiate any object that can be
233 multiplied using `*'. They can also raise an object to an exact
234 negative integer power if its reciprocal can be taken using `/'.
235 In order to allow this, the type of the first argument is no longer
236 checked when raising to an exact integer power. If the exponent is 0
237 or 1, the first parameter is not manipulated at all, and need not
238 even support multiplication.
240 *** Infinities are no longer integers, nor rationals
242 scm_integer_p `integer?' and scm_rational_p `rational?' now return #f
243 for infinities, per R6RS. Previously they returned #t for real
244 infinities. The real infinities and NaNs are still considered real by
245 scm_real `real?' however, per R6RS.
247 *** NaNs are no longer rationals
249 scm_rational_p `rational?' now returns #f for NaN values, per R6RS.
250 Previously it returned #t for real NaN values. They are still
251 considered real by scm_real `real?' however, per R6RS.
253 *** `inf?' and `nan?' now throw exceptions for non-reals
255 The domain of `inf?' and `nan?' is the real numbers. Guile now signals
256 an error when a non-real number or non-number is passed to these
257 procedures. (Note that NaNs _are_ considered numbers by scheme, despite
260 *** `rationalize' bugfixes and changes
262 Fixed bugs in scm_rationalize `rationalize'. Previously, it returned
263 exact integers unmodified, although that was incorrect if the epsilon
264 was at least 1 or inexact, e.g. (rationalize 4 1) should return 3 per
265 R5RS and R6RS, but previously it returned 4. It also now handles
266 cases involving infinities and NaNs properly, per R6RS.
268 *** Trigonometric functions now return exact numbers in some cases
270 scm_sin `sin', scm_cos `cos', scm_tan `tan', scm_asin `asin', scm_acos
271 `acos', scm_atan `atan', scm_sinh `sinh', scm_cosh `cosh', scm_tanh
272 `tanh', scm_sys_asinh `asinh', scm_sys_acosh `acosh', and
273 scm_sys_atanh `atanh' now return exact results in some cases.
275 *** New procedure: `finite?'
277 Add scm_finite_p `finite?' from R6RS to guile core, which returns #t
278 if and only if its argument is neither infinite nor a NaN. Note that
279 this is not the same as (not (inf? x)) or (not (infinite? x)), since
280 NaNs are neither finite nor infinite.
282 *** R6RS base library changes
284 **** `div', `mod', `div-and-mod', `div0', `mod0', `div0-and-mod0'
286 Efficient versions of these R6RS division operators are now supported.
287 See the NEWS entry entitled `Added two new sets of fast quotient and
288 remainder operators' for more information.
290 **** `infinite?' changes
292 `infinite?' and `finite?' now throw exceptions for non-numbers. (Note
293 that NaNs _are_ considered numbers by scheme, despite their name).
295 **** `real-valued?', `rational-valued?' and `integer-valued?' changes
297 These predicates are now implemented in accordance with R6RS.
299 ** R6RS textual I/O procedures raise R6RS error conditions
301 R6RS procedures `get-char', `put-string', etc. now raise the correct
302 R6RS error coding, i.e., `&i/o-decoding-error' or `&i/o-encoding-error'.
304 ** New reader option: `hungry-eol-escapes'
306 Guile's string syntax is more compatible with R6RS when the
307 `hungry-eol-escapes' option is enabled. See "String Syntax" in the
308 manual, for more information.
310 ** And of course, the usual collection of bugfixes
312 Interested users should see the ChangeLog for more information.
316 Changes in 1.9.x (since the 1.8.x series):
318 * New modules (see the manual for details)
320 ** `(srfi srfi-18)', more sophisticated multithreading support
321 ** `(srfi srfi-27)', sources of random bits
322 ** `(srfi srfi-38)', External Representation for Data With Shared Structure
323 ** `(srfi srfi-42)', eager comprehensions
324 ** `(srfi srfi-45)', primitives for expressing iterative lazy algorithms
325 ** `(srfi srfi-67)', compare procedures
326 ** `(ice-9 i18n)', internationalization support
327 ** `(ice-9 futures)', fine-grain parallelism
328 ** `(rnrs bytevectors)', the R6RS bytevector API
329 ** `(rnrs io ports)', a subset of the R6RS I/O port API
330 ** `(system xref)', a cross-referencing facility (FIXME undocumented)
331 ** `(ice-9 vlist)', lists with constant-time random access; hash lists
332 ** `(system foreign)', foreign function interface
333 ** `(sxml match)', a pattern matcher for SXML
334 ** `(srfi srfi-9 gnu)', extensions to the SRFI-9 record library
335 ** `(system vm coverage)', a line-by-line code coverage library
336 ** `(web uri)', URI data type, parser, and unparser
337 ** `(web http)', HTTP header parsers and unparsers
338 ** `(web request)', HTTP request data type, reader, and writer
339 ** `(web response)', HTTP response data type, reader, and writer
340 ** `(web server)', Generic HTTP server
341 ** `(ice-9 poll)', a poll wrapper
342 ** `(web server http)', HTTP-over-TCP web server implementation
344 ** Replaced `(ice-9 match)' with Alex Shinn's compatible, hygienic matcher.
346 Guile's copy of Andrew K. Wright's `match' library has been replaced by
347 a compatible hygienic implementation by Alex Shinn. It is now
348 documented, see "Pattern Matching" in the manual.
350 Compared to Andrew K. Wright's `match', the new `match' lacks
351 `match-define', `match:error-control', `match:set-error-control',
352 `match:error', `match:set-error', and all structure-related procedures.
354 ** Imported statprof, SSAX, and texinfo modules from Guile-Lib
356 The statprof statistical profiler, the SSAX XML toolkit, and the texinfo
357 toolkit from Guile-Lib have been imported into Guile proper. See
358 "Standard Library" in the manual for more details.
360 ** Integration of lalr-scm, a parser generator
362 Guile has included Dominique Boucher's fine `lalr-scm' parser generator
363 as `(system base lalr)'. See "LALR(1) Parsing" in the manual, for more
366 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
368 ** Guile now can compile Scheme to bytecode for a custom virtual machine.
370 Compiled code loads much faster than Scheme source code, and runs around
371 3 or 4 times as fast, generating much less garbage in the process.
373 ** Evaluating Scheme code does not use the C stack.
375 Besides when compiling Guile itself, Guile no longer uses a recursive C
376 function as an evaluator. This obviates the need to check the C stack
377 pointer for overflow. Continuations still capture the C stack, however.
379 ** New environment variables: GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH,
380 GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH
382 GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is for compiled files what GUILE_LOAD_PATH is
383 for source files. It is a different path, however, because compiled
384 files are architecture-specific. GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is like
387 ** New read-eval-print loop (REPL) implementation
389 Running Guile with no arguments drops the user into the new REPL. See
390 "Using Guile Interactively" in the manual, for more information.
392 ** Remove old Emacs interface
394 Guile had an unused `--emacs' command line argument that was supposed to
395 help when running Guile inside Emacs. This option has been removed, and
396 the helper functions `named-module-use!' and `load-emacs-interface' have
399 ** Add `(system repl server)' module and `--listen' command-line argument
401 The `(system repl server)' module exposes procedures to listen on
402 sockets for connections, and serve REPLs to those clients. The --listen
403 command-line argument allows any Guile program to thus be remotely
406 See "Invoking Guile" for more information on `--listen'.
408 ** Command line additions
410 The guile binary now supports a new switch "-x", which can be used to
411 extend the list of filename extensions tried when loading files
414 ** New reader options: `square-brackets' and `r6rs-hex-escapes'
416 The reader supports a new option (changeable via `read-options'),
417 `square-brackets', which instructs it to interpret square brackets as
418 parentheses. This option is on by default.
420 When the new `r6rs-hex-escapes' reader option is enabled, the reader
421 will recognize string escape sequences as defined in R6RS. R6RS string
422 escape sequences are incompatible with Guile's existing escapes, though,
423 so this option is off by default.
425 ** Function profiling and tracing at the REPL
427 The `,profile FORM' REPL meta-command can now be used to statistically
428 profile execution of a form, to see which functions are taking the most
429 time. See `,help profile' for more information.
431 Similarly, `,trace FORM' traces all function applications that occur
432 during the execution of `FORM'. See `,help trace' for more information.
434 ** Recursive debugging REPL on error
436 When Guile sees an error at the REPL, instead of saving the stack, Guile
437 will directly enter a recursive REPL in the dynamic context of the
438 error. See "Error Handling" in the manual, for more information.
440 A recursive REPL is the same as any other REPL, except that it
441 has been augmented with debugging information, so that one can inspect
442 the context of the error. The debugger has been integrated with the REPL
443 via a set of debugging meta-commands.
445 For example, one may access a backtrace with `,backtrace' (or
446 `,bt'). See "Interactive Debugging" in the manual, for more
449 ** New `guile-tools' commands: `compile', `disassemble'
451 Pass the `--help' command-line option to these commands for more
454 ** Guile now adds its install prefix to the LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH
456 Users may now install Guile to nonstandard prefixes and just run
457 `/path/to/bin/guile', instead of also having to set LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH to
458 include `/path/to/lib'.
460 ** Guile's Emacs integration is now more keyboard-friendly
462 Backtraces may now be disclosed with the keyboard in addition to the
465 ** Load path change: search in version-specific paths before site paths
467 When looking for a module, Guile now searches first in Guile's
468 version-specific path (the library path), *then* in the site dir. This
469 allows Guile's copy of SSAX to override any Guile-Lib copy the user has
470 installed. Also it should cut the number of `stat' system calls by half,
473 ** Value history in the REPL on by default
475 By default, the REPL will save computed values in variables like `$1',
476 `$2', and the like. There are programmatic and interactive interfaces to
477 control this. See "Value History" in the manual, for more information.
479 ** Readline tab completion for arguments
481 When readline is enabled, tab completion works for arguments too, not
482 just for the operator position.
484 ** Expression-oriented readline history
486 Guile's readline history now tries to operate on expressions instead of
487 input lines. Let us know what you think!
489 ** Interactive Guile follows GNU conventions
491 As recommended by the GPL, Guile now shows a brief copyright and
492 warranty disclaimer on startup, along with pointers to more information.
494 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
496 ** Support for R6RS libraries
498 The `library' and `import' forms from the latest Scheme report have been
499 added to Guile, in such a way that R6RS libraries share a namespace with
500 Guile modules. R6RS modules may import Guile modules, and are available
501 for Guile modules to import via use-modules and all the rest. See "R6RS
502 Libraries" in the manual for more information.
504 ** Implementations of R6RS libraries
506 Guile now has implementations for all of the libraries defined in the
507 R6RS. Thanks to Julian Graham for this excellent hack. See "R6RS
508 Standard Libraries" in the manual for a full list of libraries.
510 ** Partial R6RS compatibility
512 Guile now has enough support for R6RS to run a reasonably large subset
515 Guile is not fully R6RS compatible. Many incompatibilities are simply
516 bugs, though some parts of Guile will remain R6RS-incompatible for the
517 foreseeable future. See "R6RS Incompatibilities" in the manual, for more
520 Please contact bug-guile@gnu.org if you have found an issue not
521 mentioned in that compatibility list.
523 ** New implementation of `primitive-eval'
525 Guile's `primitive-eval' is now implemented in Scheme. Actually there is
526 still a C evaluator, used when building a fresh Guile to interpret the
527 compiler, so we can compile eval.scm. Thereafter all calls to
528 primitive-eval are implemented by VM-compiled code.
530 This allows all of Guile's procedures, be they interpreted or compiled,
531 to execute on the same stack, unifying multiple-value return semantics,
532 providing for proper tail recursion between interpreted and compiled
533 code, and simplifying debugging.
535 As part of this change, the evaluator no longer mutates the internal
536 representation of the code being evaluated in a thread-unsafe manner.
538 There are two negative aspects of this change, however. First, Guile
539 takes a lot longer to compile now. Also, there is less debugging
540 information available for debugging interpreted code. We hope to improve
541 both of these situations.
543 There are many changes to the internal C evalator interface, but all
544 public interfaces should be the same. See the ChangeLog for details. If
545 we have inadvertantly changed an interface that you were using, please
546 contact bug-guile@gnu.org.
548 ** Procedure removed: `the-environment'
550 This procedure was part of the interpreter's execution model, and does
551 not apply to the compiler.
553 ** No more `local-eval'
555 `local-eval' used to exist so that one could evaluate code in the
556 lexical context of a function. Since there is no way to get the lexical
557 environment any more, as that concept has no meaning for the compiler,
558 and a different meaning for the interpreter, we have removed the
561 If you think you need `local-eval', you should probably implement your
562 own metacircular evaluator. It will probably be as fast as Guile's
565 ** Scheme source files will now be compiled automatically.
567 If a compiled .go file corresponding to a .scm file is not found or is
568 not fresh, the .scm file will be compiled on the fly, and the resulting
569 .go file stored away. An advisory note will be printed on the console.
571 Note that this mechanism depends on the timestamp of the .go file being
572 newer than that of the .scm file; if the .scm or .go files are moved
573 after installation, care should be taken to preserve their original
576 Autocompiled files will be stored in the $XDG_CACHE_HOME/guile/ccache
577 directory, where $XDG_CACHE_HOME defaults to ~/.cache. This directory
578 will be created if needed.
580 To inhibit autocompilation, set the GUILE_AUTO_COMPILE environment
581 variable to 0, or pass --no-autocompile on the Guile command line.
583 ** New POSIX procedures: `getrlimit' and `setrlimit'
585 Note however that the interface of these functions is likely to change
586 in the next prerelease.
588 ** New POSIX procedure: `getsid'
590 Scheme binding for the `getsid' C library call.
592 ** New POSIX procedure: `getaddrinfo'
594 Scheme binding for the `getaddrinfo' C library function.
596 ** Multicast socket options
598 Support was added for the IP_MULTICAST_TTL and IP_MULTICAST_IF socket
599 options. See "Network Sockets and Communication" in the manual, for
602 ** New GNU procedures: `setaffinity' and `getaffinity'.
604 See "Processes" in the manual, for more information.
606 ** New procedures: `compose', `negate', and `const'
608 See "Higher-Order Functions" in the manual, for more information.
610 ** New procedure in `(oops goops)': `method-formals'
612 ** New procedures in (ice-9 session): `add-value-help-handler!',
613 `remove-value-help-handler!', `add-name-help-handler!'
614 `remove-name-help-handler!', `procedure-arguments'
616 The value and name help handlers provide some minimal extensibility to
617 the help interface. Guile-lib's `(texinfo reflection)' uses them, for
618 example, to make stexinfo help documentation available. See those
619 procedures' docstrings for more information.
621 `procedure-arguments' describes the arguments that a procedure can take,
622 combining arity and formals. For example:
624 (procedure-arguments resolve-interface)
625 => ((required . (name)) (rest . args))
627 Additionally, `module-commentary' is now publically exported from
630 ** Removed: `procedure->memoizing-macro', `procedure->syntax'
632 These procedures created primitive fexprs for the old evaluator, and are
633 no longer supported. If you feel that you need these functions, you
634 probably need to write your own metacircular evaluator (which will
635 probably be as fast as Guile's, anyway).
637 ** New language: ECMAScript
639 Guile now ships with one other high-level language supported,
640 ECMAScript. The goal is to support all of version 3.1 of the standard,
641 but not all of the libraries are there yet. This support is not yet
642 documented; ask on the mailing list if you are interested.
644 ** New language: Brainfuck
646 Brainfuck is a toy language that closely models Turing machines. Guile's
647 brainfuck compiler is meant to be an example of implementing other
648 languages. See the manual for details, or
649 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck for more information about the
650 Brainfuck language itself.
652 ** New language: Elisp
654 Guile now has an experimental Emacs Lisp compiler and runtime. You can
655 now switch to Elisp at the repl: `,language elisp'. All kudos to Daniel
656 Kraft and Brian Templeton, and all bugs to bug-guile@gnu.org.
658 ** Better documentation infrastructure for macros
660 It is now possible to introspect on the type of a macro, e.g.
661 syntax-rules, identifier-syntax, etc, and extract information about that
662 macro, such as the syntax-rules patterns or the defmacro arguments.
663 `(texinfo reflection)' takes advantage of this to give better macro
666 ** Support for arbitrary procedure metadata
668 Building on its support for docstrings, Guile now supports multiple
669 docstrings, adding them to the tail of a compiled procedure's
670 properties. For example:
676 (procedure-properties foo)
677 => ((name . foo) (documentation . "one") (documentation . "two"))
679 Also, vectors of pairs are now treated as additional metadata entries:
682 #((quz . #f) (docstring . "xyzzy"))
684 (procedure-properties bar)
685 => ((name . bar) (quz . #f) (docstring . "xyzzy"))
687 This allows arbitrary literals to be embedded as metadata in a compiled
690 ** The psyntax expander now knows how to interpret the @ and @@ special
693 ** The psyntax expander is now hygienic with respect to modules.
695 Free variables in a macro are scoped in the module that the macro was
696 defined in, not in the module the macro is used in. For example, code
699 (define-module (foo) #:export (bar))
700 (define (helper x) ...)
702 (syntax-rules () ((_ x) (helper x))))
704 (define-module (baz) #:use-module (foo))
707 It used to be you had to export `helper' from `(foo)' as well.
708 Thankfully, this has been fixed.
710 ** Support for version information in Guile's `module' form
712 Guile modules now have a `#:version' field. See "R6RS Version
713 References", "General Information about Modules", "Using Guile Modules",
714 and "Creating Guile Modules" in the manual for more information.
716 ** Support for renaming bindings on module export
718 Wherever Guile accepts a symbol as an argument to specify a binding to
719 export, it now also accepts a pair of symbols, indicating that a binding
720 should be renamed on export. See "Creating Guile Modules" in the manual
721 for more information.
723 ** New procedure: `module-export-all!'
725 This procedure exports all current and future bindings from a module.
726 Use as `(module-export-all! (current-module))'.
728 ** New procedure `reload-module', and `,reload' REPL command
730 See "Module System Reflection" and "Module Commands" in the manual, for
733 ** `eval-case' has been deprecated, and replaced by `eval-when'.
735 The semantics of `eval-when' are easier to understand. See "Eval When"
736 in the manual, for more information.
738 ** Guile is now more strict about prohibiting definitions in expression
741 Although previous versions of Guile accepted it, the following
742 expression is not valid, in R5RS or R6RS:
744 (if test (define foo 'bar) (define foo 'baz))
746 In this specific case, it would be better to do:
748 (define foo (if test 'bar 'baz))
750 It is certainly possible to circumvent this resriction with e.g.
751 `(module-define! (current-module) 'foo 'baz)'. We would appreciate
752 feedback about this change (a consequence of using psyntax as the
753 default expander), and may choose to revisit this situation before 2.0
754 in response to user feedback.
756 ** Support for `letrec*'
758 Guile now supports `letrec*', a recursive lexical binding operator in
759 which the identifiers are bound in order. See "Local Bindings" in the
760 manual, for more details.
762 ** Internal definitions now expand to `letrec*'
764 Following the R6RS, internal definitions now expand to letrec* instead
765 of letrec. The following program is invalid for R5RS, but valid for
770 (define baz (+ bar 20))
773 ;; R5RS and Guile <= 1.8:
774 (foo) => Unbound variable: bar
775 ;; R6RS and Guile >= 2.0:
778 This change should not affect correct R5RS programs, or programs written
779 in earlier Guile dialects.
781 ** Macro expansion produces structures instead of s-expressions
783 In the olden days, macroexpanding an s-expression would yield another
784 s-expression. Though the lexical variables were renamed, expansions of
785 core forms like `if' and `begin' were still non-hygienic, as they relied
786 on the toplevel definitions of `if' et al being the conventional ones.
788 The solution is to expand to structures instead of s-expressions. There
789 is an `if' structure, a `begin' structure, a `toplevel-ref' structure,
790 etc. The expander already did this for compilation, producing Tree-IL
791 directly; it has been changed now to do so when expanding for the
794 ** Defmacros must now produce valid Scheme expressions.
796 It used to be that defmacros could unquote in Scheme values, as a way of
797 supporting partial evaluation, and avoiding some hygiene issues. For
800 (define (helper x) ...)
801 (define-macro (foo bar)
804 Assuming this macro is in the `(baz)' module, the direct translation of
807 (define (helper x) ...)
808 (define-macro (foo bar)
809 `((@@ (baz) helper) ,bar))
811 Of course, one could just use a hygienic macro instead:
815 ((_ bar) (helper bar))))
817 ** Guile's psyntax now supports docstrings and internal definitions.
819 The following Scheme is not strictly legal:
826 However its intent is fairly clear. Guile interprets "bar" to be the
827 docstring of `foo', and the definition of `baz' is still in definition
830 ** Support for settable identifier syntax
832 Following the R6RS, "variable transformers" are settable
833 identifier-syntax. See "Identifier macros" in the manual, for more
836 ** syntax-case treats `_' as a placeholder
838 Following R6RS, a `_' in a syntax-rules or syntax-case pattern matches
839 anything, and binds no pattern variables. Unlike the R6RS, Guile also
840 permits `_' to be in the literals list for a pattern.
842 ** Macros need to be defined before their first use.
844 It used to be that with lazy memoization, this might work:
848 (define-macro (ref x) x)
851 But now, the body of `foo' is interpreted to mean a call to the toplevel
852 `ref' function, instead of a macro expansion. The solution is to define
853 macros before code that uses them.
855 ** Functions needed by macros at expand-time need to be present at
858 For example, this code will work at the REPL:
860 (define (double-helper x) (* x x))
861 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
862 (double-literal 2) => 4
864 But it will not work when a file is compiled, because the definition of
865 `double-helper' is not present at expand-time. The solution is to wrap
866 the definition of `double-helper' in `eval-when':
868 (eval-when (load compile eval)
869 (define (double-helper x) (* x x)))
870 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
871 (double-literal 2) => 4
873 See the documentation for eval-when for more information.
875 ** `macroexpand' produces structures, not S-expressions.
877 Given the need to maintain referential transparency, both lexically and
878 modular, the result of expanding Scheme expressions is no longer itself
879 an s-expression. If you want a human-readable approximation of the
880 result of `macroexpand', call `tree-il->scheme' from `(language
883 ** Removed function: `macroexpand-1'
885 It is unclear how to implement `macroexpand-1' with syntax-case, though
886 PLT Scheme does prove that it is possible.
888 ** New reader macros: #' #` #, #,@
890 These macros translate, respectively, to `syntax', `quasisyntax',
891 `unsyntax', and `unsyntax-splicing'. See the R6RS for more information.
892 These reader macros may be overridden by `read-hash-extend'.
894 ** Incompatible change to #'
896 Guile did have a #' hash-extension, by default, which just returned the
897 subsequent datum: #'foo => foo. In the unlikely event that anyone
898 actually used this, this behavior may be reinstated via the
899 `read-hash-extend' mechanism.
901 ** Scheme expresssions may be commented out with #;
903 #; comments out an entire expression. See SRFI-62 or the R6RS for more
906 ** Prompts: Delimited, composable continuations
908 Guile now has prompts as part of its primitive language. See "Prompts"
909 in the manual, for more information.
911 Expressions entered in at the REPL, or from the command line, are
912 surrounded by a prompt with the default prompt tag.
914 ** `make-stack' with a tail-called procedural narrowing argument no longer
915 works (with compiled procedures)
917 It used to be the case that a captured stack could be narrowed to select
918 calls only up to or from a certain procedure, even if that procedure
919 already tail-called another procedure. This was because the debug
920 information from the original procedure was kept on the stack.
922 Now with the new compiler, the stack only contains active frames from
923 the current continuation. A narrow to a procedure that is not in the
924 stack will result in an empty stack. To fix this, narrow to a procedure
925 that is active in the current continuation, or narrow to a specific
926 number of stack frames.
928 ** Backtraces through compiled procedures only show procedures that are
929 active in the current continuation
931 Similarly to the previous issue, backtraces in compiled code may be
932 different from backtraces in interpreted code. There are no semantic
933 differences, however. Please mail bug-guile@gnu.org if you see any
934 deficiencies with Guile's backtraces.
936 ** New macro: `current-source-location'
938 The macro returns the current source location (to be documented).
940 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case macros now propagate source information
941 through to the expanded code
943 This should result in better backtraces.
945 ** The currying behavior of `define' has been removed.
947 Before, `(define ((f a) b) (* a b))' would translate to
949 (define f (lambda (a) (lambda (b) (* a b))))
951 Now a syntax error is signaled, as this syntax is not supported by
952 default. Use the `(ice-9 curried-definitions)' module to get back the
955 ** New procedure, `define!'
957 `define!' is a procedure that takes two arguments, a symbol and a value,
958 and binds the value to the symbol in the current module. It's useful to
959 programmatically make definitions in the current module, and is slightly
960 less verbose than `module-define!'.
962 ** All modules have names now
964 Before, you could have anonymous modules: modules without names. Now,
965 because of hygiene and macros, all modules have names. If a module was
966 created without a name, the first time `module-name' is called on it, a
967 fresh name will be lazily generated for it.
969 ** The module namespace is now separate from the value namespace
971 It was a little-known implementation detail of Guile's module system
972 that it was built on a single hierarchical namespace of values -- that
973 if there was a module named `(foo bar)', then in the module named
974 `(foo)' there was a binding from `bar' to the `(foo bar)' module.
976 This was a neat trick, but presented a number of problems. One problem
977 was that the bindings in a module were not apparent from the module
978 itself; perhaps the `(foo)' module had a private binding for `bar', and
979 then an external contributor defined `(foo bar)'. In the end there can
980 be only one binding, so one of the two will see the wrong thing, and
981 produce an obtuse error of unclear provenance.
983 Also, the public interface of a module was also bound in the value
984 namespace, as `%module-public-interface'. This was a hack from the early
985 days of Guile's modules.
987 Both of these warts have been fixed by the addition of fields in the
988 `module' data type. Access to modules and their interfaces from the
989 value namespace has been deprecated, and all accessors use the new
990 record accessors appropriately.
992 When Guile is built with support for deprecated code, as is the default,
993 the value namespace is still searched for modules and public interfaces,
994 and a deprecation warning is raised as appropriate.
996 Finally, to support lazy loading of modules as one used to be able to do
997 with module binder procedures, Guile now has submodule binders, called
998 if a given submodule is not found. See boot-9.scm for more information.
1000 ** New procedures: module-ref-submodule, module-define-submodule,
1001 nested-ref-module, nested-define-module!, local-ref-module,
1004 These new accessors are like their bare variants, but operate on
1005 namespaces instead of values.
1007 ** The (app modules) module tree is officially deprecated
1009 It used to be that one could access a module named `(foo bar)' via
1010 `(nested-ref the-root-module '(app modules foo bar))'. The `(app
1011 modules)' bit was a never-used and never-documented abstraction, and has
1012 been deprecated. See the following mail for a full discussion:
1014 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2010-04/msg00168.html
1016 The `%app' binding is also deprecated.
1018 ** `module-filename' field and accessor
1020 Modules now record the file in which they are defined. This field may be
1021 accessed with the new `module-filename' procedure.
1023 ** Modules load within a known environment
1025 It takes a few procedure calls to define a module, and those procedure
1026 calls need to be in scope. Now we ensure that the current module when
1027 loading a module is one that has the needed bindings, instead of relying
1030 ** Many syntax errors have different texts now
1032 Syntax errors still throw to the `syntax-error' key, but the arguments
1033 are often different now. Perhaps in the future, Guile will switch to
1034 using standard SRFI-35 conditions.
1036 ** Returning multiple values to compiled code will silently truncate the
1037 values to the expected number
1039 For example, the interpreter would raise an error evaluating the form,
1040 `(+ (values 1 2) (values 3 4))', because it would see the operands as
1041 being two compound "values" objects, to which `+' does not apply.
1043 The compiler, on the other hand, receives multiple values on the stack,
1044 not as a compound object. Given that it must check the number of values
1045 anyway, if too many values are provided for a continuation, it chooses
1046 to truncate those values, effectively evaluating `(+ 1 3)' instead.
1048 The idea is that the semantics that the compiler implements is more
1049 intuitive, and the use of the interpreter will fade out with time.
1050 This behavior is allowed both by the R5RS and the R6RS.
1052 ** Multiple values in compiled code are not represented by compound
1055 This change may manifest itself in the following situation:
1057 (let ((val (foo))) (do-something) val)
1059 In the interpreter, if `foo' returns multiple values, multiple values
1060 are produced from the `let' expression. In the compiler, those values
1061 are truncated to the first value, and that first value is returned. In
1062 the compiler, if `foo' returns no values, an error will be raised, while
1063 the interpreter would proceed.
1065 Both of these behaviors are allowed by R5RS and R6RS. The compiler's
1066 behavior is more correct, however. If you wish to preserve a potentially
1067 multiply-valued return, you will need to set up a multiple-value
1068 continuation, using `call-with-values'.
1070 ** Defmacros are now implemented in terms of syntax-case.
1072 The practical ramification of this is that the `defmacro?' predicate has
1073 been removed, along with `defmacro-transformer', `macro-table',
1074 `xformer-table', `assert-defmacro?!', `set-defmacro-transformer!' and
1075 `defmacro:transformer'. This is because defmacros are simply macros. If
1076 any of these procedures provided useful facilities to you, we encourage
1077 you to contact the Guile developers.
1079 ** Hygienic macros documented as the primary syntactic extension mechanism.
1081 The macro documentation was finally fleshed out with some documentation
1082 on `syntax-rules' and `syntax-case' macros, and other parts of the macro
1083 expansion process. See "Macros" in the manual, for details.
1085 ** psyntax is now the default expander
1087 Scheme code is now expanded by default by the psyntax hygienic macro
1088 expander. Expansion is performed completely before compilation or
1091 Notably, syntax errors will be signalled before interpretation begins.
1092 In the past, many syntax errors were only detected at runtime if the
1093 code in question was memoized.
1095 As part of its expansion, psyntax renames all lexically-bound
1096 identifiers. Original identifier names are preserved and given to the
1097 compiler, but the interpreter will see the renamed variables, e.g.,
1098 `x432' instead of `x'.
1100 Note that the psyntax that Guile uses is a fork, as Guile already had
1101 modules before incompatible modules were added to psyntax -- about 10
1102 years ago! Thus there are surely a number of bugs that have been fixed
1103 in psyntax since then. If you find one, please notify bug-guile@gnu.org.
1105 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case are available by default.
1107 There is no longer any need to import the `(ice-9 syncase)' module
1108 (which is now deprecated). The expander may be invoked directly via
1109 `macroexpand', though it is normally searched for via the current module
1112 Also, the helper routines for syntax-case are available in the default
1113 environment as well: `syntax->datum', `datum->syntax',
1114 `bound-identifier=?', `free-identifier=?', `generate-temporaries',
1115 `identifier?', and `syntax-violation'. See the R6RS for documentation.
1117 ** Tail patterns in syntax-case
1119 Guile has pulled in some more recent changes from the psyntax portable
1120 syntax expander, to implement support for "tail patterns". Such patterns
1121 are supported by syntax-rules and syntax-case. This allows a syntax-case
1122 match clause to have ellipses, then a pattern at the end. For example:
1125 (syntax-rules (else)
1126 ((_ val match-clause ... (else e e* ...))
1129 Note how there is MATCH-CLAUSE, which is ellipsized, then there is a
1130 tail pattern for the else clause. Thanks to Andreas Rottmann for the
1131 patch, and Kent Dybvig for the code.
1133 ** Lexical bindings introduced by hygienic macros may not be referenced
1134 by nonhygienic macros.
1136 If a lexical binding is introduced by a hygienic macro, it may not be
1137 referenced by a nonhygienic macro. For example, this works:
1140 (define-macro (bind-x val body)
1141 `(let ((x ,val)) ,body))
1142 (define-macro (ref x)
1144 (bind-x 10 (ref x)))
1149 (define-syntax bind-x
1151 ((_ val body) (let ((x val)) body))))
1152 (define-macro (ref x)
1154 (bind-x 10 (ref x)))
1156 It is not normal to run into this situation with existing code. However,
1157 if you have defmacros that expand to hygienic macros, it is possible to
1158 run into situations like this. For example, if you have a defmacro that
1159 generates a `while' expression, the `break' bound by the `while' may not
1160 be visible within other parts of your defmacro. The solution is to port
1161 from defmacros to syntax-rules or syntax-case.
1163 ** Macros may no longer be referenced as first-class values.
1165 In the past, you could evaluate e.g. `if', and get its macro value. Now,
1166 expanding this form raises a syntax error.
1168 Macros still /exist/ as first-class values, but they must be
1169 /referenced/ via the module system, e.g. `(module-ref (current-module)
1172 ** Macros may now have docstrings.
1174 `object-documentation' from `(ice-9 documentation)' may be used to
1175 retrieve the docstring, once you have a macro value -- but see the above
1176 note about first-class macros. Docstrings are associated with the syntax
1177 transformer procedures.
1179 ** `case-lambda' is now available in the default environment.
1181 The binding in the default environment is equivalent to the one from the
1182 `(srfi srfi-16)' module. Use the srfi-16 module explicitly if you wish
1183 to maintain compatibility with Guile 1.8 and earlier.
1185 ** Procedures may now have more than one arity.
1187 This can be the case, for example, in case-lambda procedures. The
1188 arities of compiled procedures may be accessed via procedures from the
1189 `(system vm program)' module; see "Compiled Procedures", "Optional
1190 Arguments", and "Case-lambda" in the manual.
1192 ** Deprecate arity access via (procedure-properties proc 'arity)
1194 Instead of accessing a procedure's arity as a property, use the new
1195 `procedure-minimum-arity' function, which gives the most permissive
1196 arity that the the function has, in the same format as the old arity
1199 ** `lambda*' and `define*' are now available in the default environment
1201 As with `case-lambda', `(ice-9 optargs)' continues to be supported, for
1202 compatibility purposes. No semantic change has been made (we hope).
1203 Optional and keyword arguments now dispatch via special VM operations,
1204 without the need to cons rest arguments, making them very fast.
1206 ** New function, `truncated-print', with `format' support
1208 `(ice-9 pretty-print)' now exports `truncated-print', a printer that
1209 will ensure that the output stays within a certain width, truncating the
1210 output in what is hopefully an intelligent manner. See the manual for
1213 There is a new `format' specifier, `~@y', for doing a truncated
1214 print (as opposed to `~y', which does a pretty-print). See the `format'
1215 documentation for more details.
1217 ** Better pretty-printing
1219 Indentation recognizes more special forms, like `syntax-case', and read
1220 macros like `quote' are printed better.
1222 ** Passing a number as the destination of `format' is deprecated
1224 The `format' procedure in `(ice-9 format)' now emits a deprecation
1225 warning if a number is passed as its first argument.
1227 ** SRFI-4 vectors reimplemented in terms of R6RS bytevectors
1229 Guile now implements SRFI-4 vectors using bytevectors. Often when you
1230 have a numeric vector, you end up wanting to write its bytes somewhere,
1231 or have access to the underlying bytes, or read in bytes from somewhere
1232 else. Bytevectors are very good at this sort of thing. But the SRFI-4
1233 APIs are nicer to use when doing number-crunching, because they are
1234 addressed by element and not by byte.
1236 So as a compromise, Guile allows all bytevector functions to operate on
1237 numeric vectors. They address the underlying bytes in the native
1238 endianness, as one would expect.
1240 Following the same reasoning, that it's just bytes underneath, Guile
1241 also allows uniform vectors of a given type to be accessed as if they
1242 were of any type. One can fill a u32vector, and access its elements with
1243 u8vector-ref. One can use f64vector-ref on bytevectors. It's all the
1246 In this way, uniform numeric vectors may be written to and read from
1247 input/output ports using the procedures that operate on bytevectors.
1249 Calls to SRFI-4 accessors (ref and set functions) from Scheme are now
1250 inlined to the VM instructions for bytevector access.
1252 See "SRFI-4" in the manual, for more information.
1254 ** Nonstandard SRFI-4 procedures now available from `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)'
1256 Guile's `(srfi srfi-4)' now only exports those srfi-4 procedures that
1257 are part of the standard. Complex uniform vectors and the
1258 `any->FOOvector' family are now available only from `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)'.
1260 Guile's default environment imports `(srfi srfi-4)', and probably should
1261 import `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)' as well.
1263 See "SRFI-4 Extensions" in the manual, for more information.
1265 ** New syntax: include-from-path.
1267 `include-from-path' is like `include', except it looks for its file in
1268 the load path. It can be used to compile other files into a file.
1270 ** New syntax: quasisyntax.
1272 `quasisyntax' is to `syntax' as `quasiquote' is to `quote'. See the R6RS
1273 documentation for more information. Thanks to Andre van Tonder for the
1276 ** `*unspecified*' is identifier syntax
1278 `*unspecified*' is no longer a variable, so it is optimized properly by
1279 the compiler, and is not `set!'-able.
1281 ** Unicode characters
1283 Unicode characters may be entered in octal format via e.g. `#\454', or
1284 created via (integer->char 300). A hex external representation will
1285 probably be introduced at some point.
1289 Internally, strings are now represented either in the `latin-1'
1290 encoding, one byte per character, or in UTF-32, with four bytes per
1291 character. Strings manage their own allocation, switching if needed.
1293 Extended characters may be written in a literal string using the
1294 hexadecimal escapes `\xXX', `\uXXXX', or `\UXXXXXX', for 8-bit, 16-bit,
1295 or 24-bit codepoints, respectively, or entered directly in the native
1296 encoding of the port on which the string is read.
1300 One may now use U+03BB (GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMBDA) as an identifier.
1302 ** Support for non-ASCII source code files
1304 The default reader now handles source code files for some of the
1305 non-ASCII character encodings, such as UTF-8. A non-ASCII source file
1306 should have an encoding declaration near the top of the file. Also,
1307 there is a new function, `file-encoding', that scans a port for a coding
1308 declaration. See the section of the manual entitled, "Character Encoding
1311 The pre-1.9.3 reader handled 8-bit clean but otherwise unspecified source
1312 code. This use is now discouraged. Binary input and output is
1313 currently supported by opening ports in the ISO-8859-1 locale.
1315 ** Support for locale transcoding when reading from and writing to ports
1317 Ports now have an associated character encoding, and port read and write
1318 operations do conversion to and from locales automatically. Ports also
1319 have an associated strategy for how to deal with locale conversion
1322 See the documentation in the manual for the four new support functions,
1323 `set-port-encoding!', `port-encoding', `set-port-conversion-strategy!',
1324 and `port-conversion-strategy'.
1326 ** String and SRFI-13 functions can operate on Unicode strings
1328 ** Unicode support for SRFI-14 character sets
1330 The default character sets are no longer locale dependent and contain
1331 characters from the whole Unicode range. There is a new predefined
1332 character set, `char-set:designated', which contains all assigned
1333 Unicode characters. There is a new debugging function, `%char-set-dump'.
1335 ** Character functions operate on Unicode characters
1337 `char-upcase' and `char-downcase' use default Unicode casing rules.
1338 Character comparisons such as `char<?' and `char-ci<?' now sort based on
1339 Unicode code points.
1341 ** Global variables `scm_charnames' and `scm_charnums' are removed
1343 These variables contained the names of control characters and were
1344 used when writing characters. While these were global, they were
1345 never intended to be public API. They have been replaced with private
1348 ** EBCDIC support is removed
1350 There was an EBCDIC compile flag that altered some of the character
1351 processing. It appeared that full EBCDIC support was never completed
1352 and was unmaintained.
1354 ** Compile-time warnings
1356 Guile can warn about potentially unbound free variables. Pass the
1357 -Wunbound-variable on the `guile-tools compile' command line, or add
1358 `#:warnings '(unbound-variable)' to your `compile' or `compile-file'
1359 invocation. Warnings are also enabled by default for expressions entered
1362 Guile can also warn when you pass the wrong number of arguments to a
1363 procedure, with -Warity-mismatch, or `arity-mismatch' in the
1364 `#:warnings' as above.
1366 Other warnings include `-Wunused-variable' and `-Wunused-toplevel', to
1367 warn about unused local or global (top-level) variables, and `-Wformat',
1368 to check for various errors related to the `format' procedure.
1370 ** A new `memoize-symbol' evaluator trap has been added.
1372 This trap can be used for efficiently implementing a Scheme code
1375 ** Duplicate bindings among used modules are resolved lazily.
1377 This slightly improves program startup times.
1379 ** New thread cancellation and thread cleanup API
1381 See `cancel-thread', `set-thread-cleanup!', and `thread-cleanup'.
1383 ** New threads are in `(guile-user)' by default, not `(guile)'
1385 It used to be that a new thread entering Guile would do so in the
1386 `(guile)' module, unless this was the first time Guile was initialized,
1387 in which case it was `(guile-user)'. This has been fixed to have all
1388 new threads unknown to Guile default to `(guile-user)'.
1390 ** GOOPS dispatch in scheme
1392 As an implementation detail, GOOPS dispatch is no longer implemented by
1393 special evaluator bytecodes, but rather directly via a Scheme function
1394 associated with an applicable struct. There is some VM support for the
1395 underlying primitives, like `class-of'.
1397 This change will in the future allow users to customize generic function
1398 dispatch without incurring a performance penalty, and allow us to
1399 implement method combinations.
1401 ** Applicable struct support
1403 One may now make structs from Scheme that may be applied as procedures.
1404 To do so, make a struct whose vtable is `<applicable-struct-vtable>'.
1405 That struct will be the vtable of your applicable structs; instances of
1406 that new struct are assumed to have the procedure in their first slot.
1407 `<applicable-struct-vtable>' is like Common Lisp's
1408 `funcallable-standard-class'. Likewise there is
1409 `<applicable-struct-with-setter-vtable>', which looks for the setter in
1410 the second slot. This needs to be better documented.
1414 GOOPS had a number of concepts that were relevant to the days of Tcl,
1415 but not any more: operators and entities, mainly. These objects were
1416 never documented, and it is unlikely that they were ever used. Operators
1417 were a kind of generic specific to the Tcl support. Entities were
1418 replaced by applicable structs, mentioned above.
1420 ** New struct slot allocation: "hidden"
1422 A hidden slot is readable and writable, but will not be initialized by a
1423 call to make-struct. For example in your layout you would say "ph"
1424 instead of "pw". Hidden slots are useful for adding new slots to a
1425 vtable without breaking existing invocations to make-struct.
1427 ** eqv? not a generic
1429 One used to be able to extend `eqv?' as a primitive-generic, but no
1430 more. Because `eqv?' is in the expansion of `case' (via `memv'), which
1431 should be able to compile to static dispatch tables, it doesn't make
1432 sense to allow extensions that would subvert this optimization.
1434 ** `inet-ntop' and `inet-pton' are always available.
1436 Guile now use a portable implementation of `inet_pton'/`inet_ntop', so
1437 there is no more need to use `inet-aton'/`inet-ntoa'. The latter
1438 functions are deprecated.
1440 ** New primitive: `tmpfile'.
1442 See "File System" in the manual.
1444 ** Random generator state may be serialized to a datum
1446 `random-state->datum' will serialize a random state to a datum, which
1447 may be written out, read back in later, and revivified using
1448 `datum->random-state'. See "Random" in the manual, for more details.
1450 ** Fix random number generator on 64-bit platforms
1452 There was a nasty bug on 64-bit platforms in which asking for a random
1453 integer with a range between 2**32 and 2**64 caused a segfault. After
1454 many embarrassing iterations, this was fixed.
1456 ** Fast bit operations.
1458 The bit-twiddling operations `ash', `logand', `logior', and `logxor' now
1459 have dedicated bytecodes. Guile is not just for symbolic computation,
1460 it's for number crunching too.
1462 ** Faster SRFI-9 record access
1464 SRFI-9 records are now implemented directly on top of Guile's structs,
1465 and their accessors are defined in such a way that normal call-sites
1466 inline to special VM opcodes, while still allowing for the general case
1467 (e.g. passing a record accessor to `apply').
1469 ** R6RS block comment support
1471 Guile now supports R6RS nested block comments. The start of a comment is
1472 marked with `#|', and the end with `|#'.
1474 ** `guile-2' cond-expand feature
1476 To test if your code is running under Guile 2.0 (or its alpha releases),
1477 test for the `guile-2' cond-expand feature. Like this:
1479 (cond-expand (guile-2 (eval-when (compile)
1480 ;; This must be evaluated at compile time.
1481 (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
1483 ;; Earlier versions of Guile do not have a
1484 ;; separate compilation phase.
1485 (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
1487 ** New global variables: %load-compiled-path, %load-compiled-extensions
1489 These are analogous to %load-path and %load-extensions.
1491 ** New fluid: `%file-port-name-canonicalization'
1493 This fluid parameterizes the file names that are associated with file
1494 ports. If %file-port-name-canonicalization is 'absolute, then file names
1495 are canonicalized to be absolute paths. If it is 'relative, then the
1496 name is canonicalized, but any prefix corresponding to a member of
1497 `%load-path' is stripped off. Otherwise the names are passed through
1500 In addition, the `compile-file' and `compile-and-load' procedures bind
1501 %file-port-name-canonicalization to their `#:canonicalization' keyword
1502 argument, which defaults to 'relative. In this way, one might compile
1503 "../module/ice-9/boot-9.scm", but the path that gets residualized into
1504 the .go is "ice-9/boot-9.scm".
1506 ** New procedure, `make-promise'
1508 `(make-promise (lambda () foo))' is equivalent to `(delay foo)'.
1510 ** `defined?' may accept a module as its second argument
1512 Previously it only accepted internal structures from the evaluator.
1514 ** New entry into %guile-build-info: `ccachedir'
1516 ** Fix bug in `module-bound?'.
1518 `module-bound?' was returning true if a module did have a local
1519 variable, but one that was unbound, but another imported module bound
1520 the variable. This was an error, and was fixed.
1522 ** `(ice-9 syncase)' has been deprecated.
1524 As syntax-case is available by default, importing `(ice-9 syncase)' has
1525 no effect, and will trigger a deprecation warning.
1527 ** New readline history functions
1529 The (ice-9 readline) module now provides add-history, read-history,
1530 write-history and clear-history, which wrap the corresponding GNU
1531 History library functions.
1533 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures:
1534 dimensions->uniform-array, list->uniform-array, array-prototype
1536 Instead, use make-typed-array, list->typed-array, or array-type,
1539 ** Deprecate the old `scm-style-repl'
1541 The following bindings from boot-9 are now found in `(ice-9
1542 scm-style-repl)': `scm-style-repl', `error-catching-loop',
1543 `error-catching-repl', `bad-throw', `scm-repl-silent'
1544 `assert-repl-silence', `repl-print-unspecified',
1545 `assert-repl-print-unspecified', `scm-repl-verbose',
1546 `assert-repl-verbosity', `scm-repl-prompt', `set-repl-prompt!', `repl',
1547 `default-pre-unwind-handler', `handle-system-error',
1549 The following bindings have been deprecated, with no replacement:
1550 `pre-unwind-handler-dispatch'.
1552 The following bindings have been totally removed:
1553 `before-signal-stack'.
1555 Deprecated forwarding shims have been installed so that users that
1556 expect these bindings in the main namespace will still work, but receive
1557 a deprecation warning.
1559 ** `set-batch-mode?!' replaced by `ensure-batch-mode!'
1561 "Batch mode" is a flag used to tell a program that it is not running
1562 interactively. One usually turns it on after a fork. It may not be
1563 turned off. `ensure-batch-mode!' deprecates the old `set-batch-mode?!',
1564 because it is a better interface, as it can only turn on batch mode, not
1567 ** Deprecate `save-stack', `the-last-stack'
1569 It used to be that the way to debug programs in Guile was to capture the
1570 stack at the time of error, drop back to the REPL, then debug that
1571 stack. But this approach didn't compose, was tricky to get right in the
1572 presence of threads, and was not very powerful.
1574 So `save-stack', `stack-saved?', and `the-last-stack' have been moved to
1575 `(ice-9 save-stack)', with deprecated bindings left in the root module.
1577 ** `top-repl' has its own module
1579 The `top-repl' binding, called with Guile is run interactively, is now
1580 is its own module, `(ice-9 top-repl)'. A deprecated forwarding shim was
1581 left in the default environment.
1583 ** `display-error' takes a frame
1585 The `display-error' / `scm_display_error' helper now takes a frame as an
1586 argument instead of a stack. Stacks are still supported in deprecated
1587 builds. Additionally, `display-error' will again source location
1588 information for the error.
1590 ** No more `(ice-9 debug)'
1592 This module had some debugging helpers that are no longer applicable to
1593 the current debugging model. Importing this module will produce a
1594 deprecation warning. Users should contact bug-guile for support.
1596 ** Remove obsolete debug-options
1598 Removed `breakpoints', `trace', `procnames', `indent', `frames',
1599 `maxdepth', and `debug' debug-options.
1601 ** `backtrace' debug option on by default
1603 Given that Guile 2.0 can always give you a backtrace, backtraces are now
1606 ** `turn-on-debugging' deprecated
1608 ** Remove obsolete print-options
1610 The `source' and `closure-hook' print options are obsolete, and have
1613 ** Remove obsolete read-options
1615 The "elisp-strings" and "elisp-vectors" read options were unused and
1616 obsolete, so they have been removed.
1618 ** Remove eval-options and trap-options
1620 Eval-options and trap-options are obsolete with the new VM and
1623 ** Remove (ice-9 debugger) and (ice-9 debugging)
1625 See "Traps" and "Interactive Debugging" in the manual, for information
1626 on their replacements.
1628 ** Remove the GDS Emacs integration
1630 See "Using Guile in Emacs" in the manual, for info on how we think you
1631 should use Guile with Emacs.
1633 ** Deprecated: `lazy-catch'
1635 `lazy-catch' was a form that captured the stack at the point of a
1636 `throw', but the dynamic state at the point of the `catch'. It was a bit
1637 crazy. Please change to use `catch', possibly with a throw-handler, or
1638 `with-throw-handler'.
1640 ** Deprecated `@bind' syntax
1642 `@bind' was part of an older implementation of the Emacs Lisp language,
1643 and is no longer used.
1645 ** Miscellaneous other deprecations
1647 `apply-to-args', `has-suffix?', `scheme-file-suffix'
1648 `get-option', `for-next-option', `display-usage-report',
1649 `transform-usage-lambda', `collect', `set-batch-mode?!',
1651 `cuserid' has been deprecated, as it only returns 8 bytes of a user's
1652 login. Use `(passwd:name (getpwuid (geteuid)))' instead.
1654 ** Add support for unbound fluids
1656 See `make-unbound-fluid', `fluid-unset!', and `fluid-bound?' in the
1659 ** Add `variable-unset!'
1661 See "Variables" in the manual, for more details.
1663 ** Last but not least, the `λ' macro can be used in lieu of `lambda'
1665 * Changes to the C interface
1667 ** Guile now uses libgc, the Boehm-Demers-Weiser garbage collector
1669 The semantics of `scm_gc_malloc ()' have been changed, in a
1670 backward-compatible way. A new allocation routine,
1671 `scm_gc_malloc_pointerless ()', was added.
1673 Libgc is a conservative GC, which we hope will make interaction with C
1674 code easier and less error-prone.
1676 ** New procedures: `scm_to_latin1_stringn', `scm_from_latin1_stringn'
1678 Use these procedures when you know you have latin1-encoded or
1679 ASCII-encoded strings.
1681 ** New procedures: `scm_to_stringn', `scm_from_stringn'
1683 Use these procedures if you want to encode or decode from a particular
1686 ** New type definitions for `scm_t_intptr' and friends.
1688 `SCM_T_UINTPTR_MAX', `SCM_T_INTPTR_MIN', `SCM_T_INTPTR_MAX',
1689 `SIZEOF_SCM_T_BITS', `scm_t_intptr' and `scm_t_uintptr' are now
1690 available to C. Have fun!
1692 ** The GH interface (deprecated in version 1.6, 2001) was removed.
1694 ** Internal `scm_i_' functions now have "hidden" linkage with GCC/ELF
1696 This makes these internal functions technically not callable from
1699 ** Functions for handling `scm_option' now no longer require an argument
1700 indicating length of the `scm_t_option' array.
1702 ** Procedures-with-setters are now implemented using applicable structs
1704 From a user's perspective this doesn't mean very much. But if, for some
1705 odd reason, you used the SCM_PROCEDURE_WITH_SETTER_P, SCM_PROCEDURE, or
1706 SCM_SETTER macros, know that they're deprecated now. Also, scm_tc7_pws
1709 ** Remove old evaluator closures
1711 There used to be ranges of typecodes allocated to interpreted data
1712 structures, but that it no longer the case, given that interpreted
1713 procedure are now just regular VM closures. As a result, there is a
1714 newly free tc3, and a number of removed macros. See the ChangeLog for
1717 ** Primitive procedures are now VM trampoline procedures
1719 It used to be that there were something like 12 different typecodes
1720 allocated to primitive procedures, each with its own calling convention.
1721 Now there is only one, the gsubr. This may affect user code if you were
1722 defining a procedure using scm_c_make_subr rather scm_c_make_gsubr. The
1723 solution is to switch to use scm_c_make_gsubr. This solution works well
1724 both with the old 1.8 and and with the current 1.9 branch.
1726 Guile's old evaluator used to have special cases for applying "gsubrs",
1727 primitive procedures with specified numbers of required, optional, and
1728 rest arguments. Now, however, Guile represents gsubrs as normal VM
1729 procedures, with appropriate bytecode to parse out the correct number of
1730 arguments, including optional and rest arguments, and then with a
1731 special bytecode to apply the gsubr.
1733 This allows primitive procedures to appear on the VM stack, allowing
1734 them to be accurately counted in profiles. Also they now have more
1735 debugging information attached to them -- their number of arguments, for
1736 example. In addition, the VM can completely inline the application
1737 mechanics, allowing for faster primitive calls.
1739 However there are some changes on the C level. There is no more
1740 `scm_tc7_gsubr' or `scm_tcs_subrs' typecode for primitive procedures, as
1741 they are just VM procedures. Likewise the macros `SCM_GSUBR_TYPE',
1742 `SCM_GSUBR_MAKTYPE', `SCM_GSUBR_REQ', `SCM_GSUBR_OPT', and
1743 `SCM_GSUBR_REST' are gone, as are `SCM_SUBR_META_INFO', `SCM_SUBR_PROPS'
1744 `SCM_SET_SUBR_GENERIC_LOC', and `SCM_SUBR_ARITY_TO_TYPE'.
1746 Perhaps more significantly, `scm_c_make_subr',
1747 `scm_c_make_subr_with_generic', `scm_c_define_subr', and
1748 `scm_c_define_subr_with_generic'. They all operated on subr typecodes,
1749 and there are no more subr typecodes. Use the scm_c_make_gsubr family
1752 Normal users of gsubrs should not be affected, though, as the
1753 scm_c_make_gsubr family still is the correct way to create primitive
1756 ** Remove deprecated array C interfaces
1758 Removed the deprecated array functions `scm_i_arrayp',
1759 `scm_i_array_ndim', `scm_i_array_mem', `scm_i_array_v',
1760 `scm_i_array_base', `scm_i_array_dims', and the deprecated macros
1761 `SCM_ARRAYP', `SCM_ARRAY_NDIM', `SCM_ARRAY_CONTP', `SCM_ARRAY_MEM',
1762 `SCM_ARRAY_V', `SCM_ARRAY_BASE', and `SCM_ARRAY_DIMS'.
1764 ** Remove unused snarf macros
1766 `SCM_DEFINE1', `SCM_PRIMITIVE_GENERIC_1', `SCM_PROC1, and `SCM_GPROC1'
1767 are no more. Use SCM_DEFINE or SCM_PRIMITIVE_GENERIC instead.
1769 ** New functions: `scm_call_n', `scm_c_run_hookn'
1771 `scm_call_n' applies to apply a function to an array of arguments.
1772 `scm_c_run_hookn' runs a hook with an array of arguments.
1774 ** Some SMOB types changed to have static typecodes
1776 Fluids, dynamic states, and hash tables used to be SMOB objects, but now
1777 they have statically allocated tc7 typecodes.
1779 ** Preparations for changing SMOB representation
1781 If things go right, we'll be changing the SMOB representation soon. To
1782 that end, we did a lot of cleanups to calls to e.g. SCM_CELL_WORD_2(x) when
1783 the code meant SCM_SMOB_DATA_2(x); user code will need similar changes
1784 in the future. Code accessing SMOBs using SCM_CELL macros was never
1785 correct, but until now things still worked. Users should be aware of
1788 ** Changed invocation mechanics of applicable SMOBs
1790 Guile's old evaluator used to have special cases for applying SMOB
1791 objects. Now, with the VM, when Guile sees a SMOB, it looks up a VM
1792 trampoline procedure for it, and use the normal mechanics to apply the
1793 trampoline. This simplifies procedure application in the normal,
1796 The upshot is that the mechanics used to apply a SMOB are different from
1797 1.8. Descriptors no longer have `apply_0', `apply_1', `apply_2', and
1798 `apply_3' functions, and the macros SCM_SMOB_APPLY_0 and friends are now
1799 deprecated. Just use the scm_call_0 family of procedures.
1801 ** Removed support shlibs for SRFIs 1, 4, 13, 14, and 60
1803 Though these SRFI support libraries did expose API, they encoded a
1804 strange version string into their library names. That version was never
1805 programmatically exported, so there was no way people could use the
1808 This was a fortunate oversight, as it allows us to remove the need for
1809 extra, needless shared libraries --- the C support code for SRFIs 4, 13,
1810 and 14 was already in core --- and allow us to incrementally return the
1811 SRFI implementation to Scheme.
1813 ** New C function: scm_module_public_interface
1815 This procedure corresponds to Scheme's `module-public-interface'.
1817 ** Undeprecate `scm_the_root_module ()'
1819 It's useful to be able to get the root module from C without doing a
1822 ** Inline vector allocation
1824 Instead of having vectors point out into the heap for their data, their
1825 data is now allocated inline to the vector object itself. The same is
1826 true for bytevectors, by default, though there is an indirection
1827 available which should allow for making a bytevector from an existing
1830 ** New struct constructors that don't involve making lists
1832 `scm_c_make_struct' and `scm_c_make_structv' are new varargs and array
1833 constructors, respectively, for structs. You might find them useful.
1837 In Guile 1.8, there were debugging frames on the C stack. Now there is
1838 no more need to explicitly mark the stack in this way, because Guile has
1839 a VM stack that it knows how to walk, which simplifies the C API
1840 considerably. See the ChangeLog for details; the relevant interface is
1841 in libguile/stacks.h. The Scheme API has not been changed significantly.
1843 ** Removal of Guile's primitive object system.
1845 There were a number of pieces in `objects.[ch]' that tried to be a
1846 minimal object system, but were never documented, and were quickly
1847 obseleted by GOOPS' merge into Guile proper. So `scm_make_class_object',
1848 `scm_make_subclass_object', `scm_metaclass_standard', and like symbols
1849 from objects.h are no more. In the very unlikely case in which these
1850 were useful to you, we urge you to contact guile-devel.
1854 Actually the future is still in the state that it was, is, and ever
1855 shall be, Amen, except that `futures.c' and `futures.h' are no longer a
1856 part of it. These files were experimental, never compiled, and would be
1857 better implemented in Scheme anyway. In the future, that is.
1859 ** Deprecate trampolines
1861 There used to be C functions `scm_trampoline_0', `scm_trampoline_1', and
1862 so on. The point was to do some precomputation on the type of the
1863 procedure, then return a specialized "call" procedure. However this
1864 optimization wasn't actually an optimization, so it is now deprecated.
1865 Just use `scm_call_0', etc instead.
1867 ** Deprecated `scm_badargsp'
1869 This function is unused in Guile, but was part of its API.
1871 ** Better support for Lisp `nil'.
1873 The bit representation of `nil' has been tweaked so that it is now very
1874 efficient to check e.g. if a value is equal to Scheme's end-of-list or
1875 Lisp's nil. Additionally there are a heap of new, specific predicates
1876 like scm_is_null_or_nil.
1878 ** Better integration of Lisp `nil'.
1880 `scm_is_boolean', `scm_is_false', and `scm_is_null' all return true now
1881 for Lisp's `nil'. This shouldn't affect any Scheme code at this point,
1882 but when we start to integrate more with Emacs, it is possible that we
1883 break code that assumes that, for example, `(not x)' implies that `x' is
1884 `eq?' to `#f'. This is not a common assumption. Refactoring affected
1885 code to rely on properties instead of identities will improve code
1886 correctness. See "Nil" in the manual, for more details.
1888 ** Support for static allocation of strings, symbols, and subrs.
1890 Calls to snarfing CPP macros like SCM_DEFINE macro will now allocate
1891 much of their associated data as static variables, reducing Guile's
1894 ** `scm_stat' has an additional argument, `exception_on_error'
1895 ** `scm_primitive_load_path' has an additional argument `exception_on_not_found'
1897 ** `scm_set_port_seek' and `scm_set_port_truncate' use the `scm_t_off' type
1899 Previously they would use the `off_t' type, which is fragile since its
1900 definition depends on the application's value for `_FILE_OFFSET_BITS'.
1902 ** The `long_long' C type, deprecated in 1.8, has been removed
1904 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures: scm_make_uve,
1905 scm_array_prototype, scm_list_to_uniform_array,
1906 scm_dimensions_to_uniform_array, scm_make_ra, scm_shap2ra, scm_cvref,
1907 scm_ra_set_contp, scm_aind, scm_raprin1
1909 These functions have been deprecated since early 2005.
1911 * Changes to the distribution
1913 ** Guile's license is now LGPLv3+
1915 In other words the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3 or
1916 later (at the discretion of each person that chooses to redistribute
1921 Guile's build is visually quieter, due to the use of Automake 1.11's
1922 AM_SILENT_RULES. Build as `make V=1' to see all of the output.
1924 ** GOOPS documentation folded into Guile reference manual
1926 GOOPS, Guile's object system, used to be documented in separate manuals.
1927 This content is now included in Guile's manual directly.
1929 ** `guile-config' will be deprecated in favor of `pkg-config'
1931 `guile-config' has been rewritten to get its information from
1932 `pkg-config', so this should be a transparent change. Note however that
1933 guile.m4 has yet to be modified to call pkg-config instead of
1936 ** Guile now provides `guile-2.0.pc' instead of `guile-1.8.pc'
1938 Programs that use `pkg-config' to find Guile or one of its Autoconf
1939 macros should now require `guile-2.0' instead of `guile-1.8'.
1941 ** New installation directory: $(pkglibdir)/1.9/ccache
1943 If $(libdir) is /usr/lib, for example, Guile will install its .go files
1944 to /usr/lib/guile/1.9/ccache. These files are architecture-specific.
1946 ** Parallel installability fixes
1948 Guile now installs its header files to a effective-version-specific
1949 directory, and includes the effective version (e.g. 2.0) in the library
1950 name (e.g. libguile-2.0.so).
1952 This change should be transparent to users, who should detect Guile via
1953 the guile.m4 macro, or the guile-2.0.pc pkg-config file. It will allow
1954 parallel installs for multiple versions of Guile development
1957 ** Dynamically loadable extensions may be placed in a Guile-specific path
1959 Before, Guile only searched the system library paths for extensions
1960 (e.g. /usr/lib), which meant that the names of Guile extensions had to
1961 be globally unique. Installing them to a Guile-specific extensions
1962 directory is cleaner. Use `pkg-config --variable=extensiondir
1963 guile-2.0' to get the location of the extensions directory.
1965 ** User Scheme code may be placed in a version-specific path
1967 Before, there was only one way to install user Scheme code to a
1968 version-specific Guile directory: install to Guile's own path,
1969 e.g. /usr/share/guile/2.0. The site directory,
1970 e.g. /usr/share/guile/site, was unversioned. This has been changed to
1971 add a version-specific site directory, e.g. /usr/share/guile/site/2.0,
1972 searched before the global site directory.
1974 ** New dependency: libgc
1976 See http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/, for more information.
1978 ** New dependency: GNU libunistring
1980 See http://www.gnu.org/software/libunistring/, for more information. Our
1981 Unicode support uses routines from libunistring.
1983 ** New dependency: libffi
1985 See http://sourceware.org/libffi/, for more information.
1989 Changes in 1.8.8 (since 1.8.7)
1993 ** Fix possible buffer overruns when parsing numbers
1994 ** Avoid clash with system setjmp/longjmp on IA64
1995 ** Fix `wrong type arg' exceptions with IPv6 addresses
1998 Changes in 1.8.7 (since 1.8.6)
2000 * New modules (see the manual for details)
2002 ** `(srfi srfi-98)', an interface to access environment variables
2006 ** Fix compilation with `--disable-deprecated'
2007 ** Fix %fast-slot-ref/set!, to avoid possible segmentation fault
2008 ** Fix MinGW build problem caused by HAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC confusion
2009 ** Fix build problem when scm_t_timespec is different from struct timespec
2010 ** Fix build when compiled with -Wundef -Werror
2011 ** More build fixes for `alphaev56-dec-osf5.1b' (Tru64)
2012 ** Build fixes for `powerpc-ibm-aix5.3.0.0' (AIX 5.3)
2013 ** With GCC, always compile with `-mieee' on `alpha*' and `sh*'
2014 ** Better diagnose broken `(strftime "%z" ...)' in `time.test' (bug #24130)
2015 ** Fix parsing of SRFI-88/postfix keywords longer than 128 characters
2016 ** Fix reading of complex numbers where both parts are inexact decimals
2018 ** Allow @ macro to work with (ice-9 syncase)
2020 Previously, use of the @ macro in a module whose code is being
2021 transformed by (ice-9 syncase) would cause an "Invalid syntax" error.
2022 Now it works as you would expect (giving the value of the specified
2025 ** Have `scm_take_locale_symbol ()' return an interned symbol (bug #25865)
2028 Changes in 1.8.6 (since 1.8.5)
2030 * New features (see the manual for details)
2032 ** New convenience function `scm_c_symbol_length ()'
2034 ** Single stepping through code from Emacs
2036 When you use GDS to evaluate Scheme code from Emacs, you can now use
2037 `C-u' to indicate that you want to single step through that code. See
2038 `Evaluating Scheme Code' in the manual for more details.
2040 ** New "guile(1)" man page!
2042 * Changes to the distribution
2044 ** Automake's `AM_MAINTAINER_MODE' is no longer used
2046 Thus, the `--enable-maintainer-mode' configure option is no longer
2047 available: Guile is now always configured in "maintainer mode".
2049 ** `ChangeLog' files are no longer updated
2051 Instead, changes are detailed in the version control system's logs. See
2052 the top-level `ChangeLog' files for details.
2057 ** `symbol->string' now returns a read-only string, as per R5RS
2058 ** Fix incorrect handling of the FLAGS argument of `fold-matches'
2059 ** `guile-config link' now prints `-L$libdir' before `-lguile'
2060 ** Fix memory corruption involving GOOPS' `class-redefinition'
2061 ** Fix possible deadlock in `mutex-lock'
2062 ** Fix build issue on Tru64 and ia64-hp-hpux11.23 (`SCM_UNPACK' macro)
2063 ** Fix build issue on mips, mipsel, powerpc and ia64 (stack direction)
2064 ** Fix build issue on hppa2.0w-hp-hpux11.11 (`dirent64' and `readdir64_r')
2065 ** Fix build issue on i386-unknown-freebsd7.0 ("break strict-aliasing rules")
2066 ** Fix misleading output from `(help rationalize)'
2067 ** Fix build failure on Debian hppa architecture (bad stack growth detection)
2068 ** Fix `gcd' when called with a single, negative argument.
2069 ** Fix `Stack overflow' errors seen when building on some platforms
2070 ** Fix bug when `scm_with_guile ()' was called several times from the
2072 ** The handler of SRFI-34 `with-exception-handler' is now invoked in the
2073 dynamic environment of the call to `raise'
2074 ** Fix potential deadlock in `make-struct'
2075 ** Fix compilation problem with libltdl from Libtool 2.2.x
2076 ** Fix sloppy bound checking in `string-{ref,set!}' with the empty string
2079 Changes in 1.8.5 (since 1.8.4)
2081 * Infrastructure changes
2083 ** Guile repository switched from CVS to Git
2085 The new repository can be accessed using
2086 "git-clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/guile.git", or can be browsed on-line at
2087 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=guile.git . See `README' for details.
2089 ** Add support for `pkg-config'
2091 See "Autoconf Support" in the manual for details.
2093 * New modules (see the manual for details)
2097 * New features (see the manual for details)
2099 ** New `postfix' read option, for SRFI-88 keyword syntax
2100 ** Some I/O primitives have been inlined, which improves I/O performance
2101 ** New object-based traps infrastructure
2103 This is a GOOPS-based infrastructure that builds on Guile's low-level
2104 evaluator trap calls and facilitates the development of debugging
2105 features like single-stepping, breakpoints, tracing and profiling.
2106 See the `Traps' node of the manual for details.
2108 ** New support for working on Guile code from within Emacs
2110 Guile now incorporates the `GDS' library (previously distributed
2111 separately) for working on Guile code from within Emacs. See the
2112 `Using Guile In Emacs' node of the manual for details.
2116 ** `scm_add_slot ()' no longer segfaults (fixes bug #22369)
2117 ** Fixed `(ice-9 match)' for patterns like `((_ ...) ...)'
2119 Previously, expressions like `(match '((foo) (bar)) (((_ ...) ...) #t))'
2120 would trigger an unbound variable error for `match:andmap'.
2122 ** `(oop goops describe)' now properly provides the `describe' feature
2123 ** Fixed `args-fold' from `(srfi srfi-37)'
2125 Previously, parsing short option names of argument-less options would
2126 lead to a stack overflow.
2128 ** `(srfi srfi-35)' is now visible through `cond-expand'
2129 ** Fixed type-checking for the second argument of `eval'
2130 ** Fixed type-checking for SRFI-1 `partition'
2131 ** Fixed `struct-ref' and `struct-set!' on "light structs"
2132 ** Honor struct field access rights in GOOPS
2133 ** Changed the storage strategy of source properties, which fixes a deadlock
2134 ** Allow compilation of Guile-using programs in C99 mode with GCC 4.3 and later
2135 ** Fixed build issue for GNU/Linux on IA64
2136 ** Fixed build issues on NetBSD 1.6
2137 ** Fixed build issue on Solaris 2.10 x86_64
2138 ** Fixed build issue with DEC/Compaq/HP's compiler
2139 ** Fixed `scm_from_complex_double' build issue on FreeBSD
2140 ** Fixed `alloca' build issue on FreeBSD 6
2141 ** Removed use of non-portable makefile constructs
2142 ** Fixed shadowing of libc's <random.h> on Tru64, which broke compilation
2143 ** Make sure all tests honor `$TMPDIR'
2146 Changes in 1.8.4 (since 1.8.3)
2150 ** CR (ASCII 0x0d) is (again) recognized as a token delimiter by the reader
2151 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when displaying the
2152 backtrace of a stack with a promise object (made by `delay') in it.
2153 ** Make `accept' leave guile mode while blocking
2154 ** `scm_c_read ()' and `scm_c_write ()' now type-check their port argument
2155 ** Fixed a build problem on AIX (use of func_data identifier)
2156 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when hashx-ref or hashx-set! was
2157 called with an associator proc that returns neither a pair nor #f.
2158 ** Secondary threads now always return a valid module for (current-module).
2159 ** Avoid MacOS build problems caused by incorrect combination of "64"
2160 system and library calls.
2161 ** `guile-snarf' now honors `$TMPDIR'
2162 ** `guile-config compile' now reports CPPFLAGS used at compile-time
2163 ** Fixed build with Sun Studio (Solaris 9)
2164 ** Fixed wrong-type-arg errors when creating zero length SRFI-4
2165 uniform vectors on AIX.
2166 ** Fixed a deadlock that occurs upon GC with multiple threads.
2167 ** Fixed compile problem with GCC on Solaris and AIX (use of _Complex_I)
2168 ** Fixed autotool-derived build problems on AIX 6.1.
2169 ** Fixed NetBSD/alpha support
2170 ** Fixed MacOS build problem caused by use of rl_get_keymap(_name)
2172 * New modules (see the manual for details)
2176 * Documentation fixes and improvements
2178 ** Removed premature breakpoint documentation
2180 The features described are not available in the series of 1.8.x
2181 releases, so the documentation was misleading and has been removed.
2183 ** More about Guile's default *random-state* variable
2185 ** GOOPS: more about how to use `next-method'
2187 * Changes to the distribution
2189 ** Corrected a few files that referred incorrectly to the old GPL + special exception licence
2191 In fact Guile since 1.8.0 has been licensed with the GNU Lesser
2192 General Public License, and the few incorrect files have now been
2193 fixed to agree with the rest of the Guile distribution.
2195 ** Removed unnecessary extra copies of COPYING*
2197 The distribution now contains a single COPYING.LESSER at its top level.
2200 Changes in 1.8.3 (since 1.8.2)
2202 * New modules (see the manual for details)
2209 ** The `(ice-9 slib)' module now works as expected
2210 ** Expressions like "(set! 'x #t)" no longer yield a crash
2211 ** Warnings about duplicate bindings now go to stderr
2212 ** A memory leak in `make-socket-address' was fixed
2213 ** Alignment issues (e.g., on SPARC) in network routines were fixed
2214 ** A threading issue that showed up at least on NetBSD was fixed
2215 ** Build problems on Solaris and IRIX fixed
2217 * Implementation improvements
2219 ** The reader is now faster, which reduces startup time
2220 ** Procedures returned by `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' are faster
2223 Changes in 1.8.2 (since 1.8.1):
2225 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
2227 ** set-program-arguments
2230 * Incompatible changes
2232 ** The body of a top-level `define' no longer sees the binding being created
2234 In a top-level `define', the binding being created is no longer visible
2235 from the `define' body. This breaks code like
2236 "(define foo (begin (set! foo 1) (+ foo 1)))", where `foo' is now
2237 unbound in the body. However, such code was not R5RS-compliant anyway,
2242 ** Fractions were not `equal?' if stored in unreduced form.
2243 (A subtle problem, since printing a value reduced it, making it work.)
2244 ** srfi-60 `copy-bit' failed on 64-bit systems
2245 ** "guile --use-srfi" option at the REPL can replace core functions
2246 (Programs run with that option were ok, but in the interactive REPL
2247 the core bindings got priority, preventing SRFI replacements or
2249 ** `regexp-exec' doesn't abort() on #\nul in the input or bad flags arg
2250 ** `kill' on mingw throws an error for a PID other than oneself
2251 ** Procedure names are attached to procedure-with-setters
2252 ** Array read syntax works with negative lower bound
2253 ** `array-in-bounds?' fix if an array has different lower bounds on each index
2254 ** `*' returns exact 0 for "(* inexact 0)"
2255 This follows what it always did for "(* 0 inexact)".
2256 ** SRFI-19: Value returned by `(current-time time-process)' was incorrect
2257 ** SRFI-19: `date->julian-day' did not account for timezone offset
2258 ** `ttyname' no longer crashes when passed a non-tty argument
2259 ** `inet-ntop' no longer crashes on SPARC when passed an `AF_INET' address
2260 ** Small memory leaks have been fixed in `make-fluid' and `add-history'
2261 ** GOOPS: Fixed a bug in `method-more-specific?'
2262 ** Build problems on Solaris fixed
2263 ** Build problems on HP-UX IA64 fixed
2264 ** Build problems on MinGW fixed
2267 Changes in 1.8.1 (since 1.8.0):
2269 * LFS functions are now used to access 64-bit files on 32-bit systems.
2271 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
2273 ** primitive-_exit - [Scheme] the-root-module
2274 ** scm_primitive__exit - [C]
2275 ** make-completion-function - [Scheme] (ice-9 readline)
2276 ** scm_c_locale_stringn_to_number - [C]
2277 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse [C]
2278 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse_x [C]
2286 ** Build problems have been fixed on MacOS, SunOS, and QNX.
2288 ** `strftime' fix sign of %z timezone offset.
2290 ** A one-dimensional array can now be 'equal?' to a vector.
2292 ** Structures, records, and SRFI-9 records can now be compared with `equal?'.
2294 ** SRFI-14 standard char sets are recomputed upon a successful `setlocale'.
2296 ** `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' now have strict type checks.
2298 Record accessor and modifier procedures now throw an error if the
2299 record type of the record they're given is not the type expected.
2300 (Previously accessors returned #f and modifiers silently did nothing).
2302 ** It is now OK to use both autoload and use-modules on a given module.
2304 ** `apply' checks the number of arguments more carefully on "0 or 1" funcs.
2306 Previously there was no checking on primatives like make-vector that
2307 accept "one or two" arguments. Now there is.
2309 ** The srfi-1 assoc function now calls its equality predicate properly.
2311 Previously srfi-1 assoc would call the equality predicate with the key
2312 last. According to the SRFI, the key should be first.
2314 ** A bug in n-par-for-each and n-for-each-par-map has been fixed.
2316 ** The array-set! procedure no longer segfaults when given a bit vector.
2318 ** Bugs in make-shared-array have been fixed.
2320 ** string<? and friends now follow char<? etc order on 8-bit chars.
2322 ** The format procedure now handles inf and nan values for ~f correctly.
2324 ** exact->inexact should no longer overflow when given certain large fractions.
2326 ** srfi-9 accessor and modifier procedures now have strict record type checks.
2328 This matches the srfi-9 specification.
2330 ** (ice-9 ftw) procedures won't ignore different files with same inode number.
2332 Previously the (ice-9 ftw) procedures would ignore any file that had
2333 the same inode number as a file they had already seen, even if that
2334 file was on a different device.
2337 Changes in 1.8.0 (changes since the 1.6.x series):
2339 * Changes to the distribution
2341 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
2343 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
2345 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
2347 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
2349 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
2351 That is, things like HAVE_STRING_H no longer leak from Guile's
2354 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
2356 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
2357 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
2358 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
2359 so the current effective-version is "1.8". The effective version
2360 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
2361 items like the versioned share directory name
2362 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.8.
2364 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
2365 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
2366 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
2367 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
2368 with each micro release during a stable series.
2370 ** Thread implementation has changed.
2372 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
2373 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
2374 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
2375 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
2376 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
2379 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
2380 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
2381 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
2382 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
2385 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
2386 in which case "null" threads are used.
2388 See the manual for details, nodes "Initialization", "Multi-Threading",
2389 "Blocking", and others.
2391 ** There is the new notion of 'discouraged' features.
2393 This is a milder form of deprecation.
2395 Things that are discouraged should not be used in new code, but it is
2396 OK to leave them in old code for now. When a discouraged feature is
2397 used, no warning message is printed like there is for 'deprecated'
2398 features. Also, things that are merely discouraged are nevertheless
2399 implemented efficiently, while deprecated features can be very slow.
2401 You can omit discouraged features from libguile by configuring it with
2402 the '--disable-discouraged' option.
2404 ** Deprecation warnings can be controlled at run-time.
2406 (debug-enable 'warn-deprecated) switches them on and (debug-disable
2407 'warn-deprecated) switches them off.
2409 ** Support for SRFI 61, extended cond syntax for multiple values has
2412 This SRFI is always available.
2414 ** Support for require-extension, SRFI-55, has been added.
2416 The SRFI-55 special form `require-extension' has been added. It is
2417 available at startup, and provides a portable way to load Scheme
2418 extensions. SRFI-55 only requires support for one type of extension,
2419 "srfi"; so a set of SRFIs may be loaded via (require-extension (srfi 1
2422 ** New module (srfi srfi-26) provides support for `cut' and `cute'.
2424 The (srfi srfi-26) module is an implementation of SRFI-26 which
2425 provides the `cut' and `cute' syntax. These may be used to specialize
2426 parameters without currying.
2428 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
2430 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
2431 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
2433 ** The modules (srfi srfi-13), (srfi srfi-14) and (srfi srfi-4) have
2434 been merged with the core, making their functionality always
2437 The modules are still available, tho, and you could use them together
2438 with a renaming import, for example.
2440 ** Guile no longer includes its own version of libltdl.
2442 The official version is good enough now.
2444 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
2446 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
2447 provided. Use 'make html'.
2449 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
2451 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when you
2452 don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but where you
2453 have some section(s) of code which you consider can run in parallel to
2454 other sections. See ice-9/serialize.scm for more information.
2456 ** The configure option '--disable-arrays' has been removed.
2458 Support for arrays and uniform numeric arrays is now always included
2461 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2463 ** New command line option `-L'.
2465 This option adds a directory to the front of the load path.
2467 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
2469 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
2470 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
2472 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
2474 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
2475 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
2477 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
2479 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
2480 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
2483 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
2486 (define-module (demo)
2490 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
2493 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2495 ** Guardians have changed back to their original semantics
2497 Guardians now behave like described in the paper by Dybvig et al. In
2498 particular, they no longer make guarantees about the order in which
2499 they return objects, and they can no longer be greedy.
2501 They no longer drop cyclic data structures.
2503 The C function scm_make_guardian has been changed incompatibly and no
2504 longer takes the 'greedy_p' argument.
2506 ** New function hashx-remove!
2508 This function completes the set of 'hashx' functions.
2510 ** The concept of dynamic roots has been factored into continuation
2511 barriers and dynamic states.
2513 Each thread has a current dynamic state that carries the values of the
2514 fluids. You can create and copy dynamic states and use them as the
2515 second argument for 'eval'. See "Fluids and Dynamic States" in the
2518 To restrict the influence that captured continuations can have on the
2519 control flow, you can errect continuation barriers. See "Continuation
2520 Barriers" in the manual.
2522 The function call-with-dynamic-root now essentially temporarily
2523 installs a new dynamic state and errects a continuation barrier.
2525 ** The default load path no longer includes "." at the end.
2527 Automatically loading modules from the current directory should not
2528 happen by default. If you want to allow it in a more controlled
2529 manner, set the environment variable GUILE_LOAD_PATH or the Scheme
2530 variable %load-path.
2532 ** The uniform vector and array support has been overhauled.
2534 It now complies with SRFI-4 and the weird prototype based uniform
2535 array creation has been deprecated. See the manual for more details.
2537 Some non-compatible changes have been made:
2538 - characters can no longer be stored into byte arrays.
2539 - strings and bit vectors are no longer considered to be uniform numeric
2541 - array-rank throws an error for non-arrays instead of returning zero.
2542 - array-ref does no longer accept non-arrays when no indices are given.
2544 There is the new notion of 'generalized vectors' and corresponding
2545 procedures like 'generalized-vector-ref'. Generalized vectors include
2546 strings, bitvectors, ordinary vectors, and uniform numeric vectors.
2548 Arrays use generalized vectors as their storage, so that you still
2549 have arrays of characters, bits, etc. However, uniform-array-read!
2550 and uniform-array-write can no longer read/write strings and
2553 ** There is now support for copy-on-write substrings, mutation-sharing
2554 substrings and read-only strings.
2556 Three new procedures are related to this: substring/shared,
2557 substring/copy, and substring/read-only. See the manual for more
2560 ** Backtraces will now highlight the value that caused the error.
2562 By default, these values are enclosed in "{...}", such as in this
2571 <unnamed port>:1:1: In procedure car in expression (car (quote a)):
2572 <unnamed port>:1:1: Wrong type (expecting pair): a
2573 ABORT: (wrong-type-arg)
2575 The prefix and suffix used for highlighting can be set via the two new
2576 printer options 'highlight-prefix' and 'highlight-suffix'. For
2577 example, putting this into ~/.guile will output the bad value in bold
2578 on an ANSI terminal:
2580 (print-set! highlight-prefix "\x1b[1m")
2581 (print-set! highlight-suffix "\x1b[22m")
2584 ** 'gettext' support for internationalization has been added.
2586 See the manual for details.
2588 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
2590 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
2593 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
2595 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
2596 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
2597 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
2598 '@' as a target of 'set!', as in (set! (@ mod var) val).
2600 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
2601 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
2602 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
2605 ** Keyword syntax has been made more disciplined.
2607 Previously, the name of a keyword was read as a 'token' but printed as
2608 a symbol. Now, it is read as a general Scheme datum which must be a
2619 ERROR: In expression (a b c):
2623 ERROR: Unbound variable: foo
2628 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): 12
2632 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): (a b c)
2636 ** The printing of symbols that might look like keywords can be
2639 The new printer option 'quote-keywordish-symbols' controls how symbols
2640 are printed that have a colon as their first or last character. The
2641 default now is to only quote a symbol with #{...}# when the read
2642 option 'keywords' is not '#f'. Thus:
2644 guile> (define foo (string->symbol ":foo"))
2645 guile> (read-set! keywords #f)
2648 guile> (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
2651 guile> (print-set! quote-keywordish-symbols #f)
2655 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
2657 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
2658 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
2659 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
2662 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
2665 ** The module system now checks for duplicate bindings.
2667 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
2670 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more 'duplicates'
2671 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
2674 (define-module (foo)
2679 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
2680 has been detected is to
2682 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
2683 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
2684 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
2687 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
2690 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
2692 to your .guile init file.
2694 ** New define-module option: :replace
2696 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
2699 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
2700 for the core binding `format'.
2702 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
2704 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
2705 a prefix to all imported bindings.
2707 (define-module (foo)
2708 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
2710 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
2713 ** Conflicting generic functions can be automatically merged.
2715 When two imported bindings conflict and they are both generic
2716 functions, the two functions can now be merged automatically. This is
2717 activated with the 'duplicates' handler 'merge-generics'.
2719 ** New function: effective-version
2721 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
2722 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
2723 to the distribution" above.
2725 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
2727 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
2728 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
2730 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
2732 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
2733 instead of blocking and indicate failure.
2735 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
2737 The function 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
2738 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
2741 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
2743 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
2745 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
2747 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
2748 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
2749 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
2752 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
2753 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
2754 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
2755 'system-async-mark'.
2757 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
2758 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
2760 When a thread blocks on a mutex, a condition variable or is waiting
2761 for IO to be possible, it will still execute system asyncs. This can
2762 be used to interrupt such a thread by making it execute a 'throw', for
2765 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
2767 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
2768 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
2771 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
2772 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
2774 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
2775 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
2776 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
2777 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
2778 level for the current thread.
2780 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
2782 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
2784 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
2785 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
2788 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
2790 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
2792 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
2795 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
2797 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
2800 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
2801 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
2802 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
2804 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
2805 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
2806 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
2807 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
2818 ERROR: Numerical overflow
2820 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
2823 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
2825 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
2826 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
2827 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
2838 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
2840 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
2841 them is also done exactly, of course:
2846 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
2847 for exact arguments.
2849 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
2850 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
2852 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
2854 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
2855 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
2856 equal to a floating point number. For example:
2858 (inexact->exact 1.234)
2859 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
2861 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitly:
2863 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
2866 ** New function 'rationalize'.
2868 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
2869 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
2871 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
2874 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
2875 result when both its arguments are exact.
2877 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
2879 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
2880 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
2881 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
2883 ** Guile now has uninterned symbols.
2885 The new function 'make-symbol' will return an uninterned symbol. This
2886 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
2887 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
2889 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
2892 ** pretty-print has more options.
2894 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
2895 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
2896 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
2898 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
2900 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
2901 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
2902 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
2904 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
2906 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
2907 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
2909 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
2911 Change your code to use 'define-macro' or r5rs macros. Also, be aware
2912 that macro expansion will not be done during evaluation, but prior to
2915 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
2917 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
2918 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
2919 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
2920 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
2921 without the soft port blocking.
2923 ** Deprecated: undefine
2925 There is no replacement for undefine.
2927 ** The functions make-keyword-from-dash-symbol and keyword-dash-symbol
2928 have been discouraged.
2930 They are relics from a time where a keyword like #:foo was used
2931 directly as a Tcl option "-foo" and thus keywords were internally
2932 stored as a symbol with a starting dash. We now store a symbol
2935 Use symbol->keyword and keyword->symbol instead.
2937 ** The `cheap' debug option is now obsolete
2939 Evaluator trap calls are now unconditionally "cheap" - in other words,
2940 they pass a debug object to the trap handler rather than a full
2941 continuation. The trap handler code can capture a full continuation
2942 by using `call-with-current-continuation' in the usual way, if it so
2945 The `cheap' option is retained for now so as not to break existing
2946 code which gets or sets it, but setting it now has no effect. It will
2947 be removed in the next major Guile release.
2949 ** Evaluator trap calls now support `tweaking'
2951 `Tweaking' means that the trap handler code can modify the Scheme
2952 expression that is about to be evaluated (in the case of an
2953 enter-frame trap) or the value that is being returned (in the case of
2954 an exit-frame trap). The trap handler code indicates that it wants to
2955 do this by returning a pair whose car is the symbol 'instead and whose
2956 cdr is the modified expression or return value.
2958 * Changes to the C interface
2960 ** The functions scm_hash_fn_remove_x and scm_hashx_remove_x no longer
2961 take a 'delete' function argument.
2963 This argument makes no sense since the delete function is used to
2964 remove a pair from an alist, and this must not be configurable.
2966 This is an incompatible change.
2968 ** The GH interface is now subject to the deprecation mechanism
2970 The GH interface has been deprecated for quite some time but now it is
2971 actually removed from Guile when it is configured with
2972 --disable-deprecated.
2974 See the manual "Transitioning away from GH" for more information.
2976 ** A new family of functions for converting between C values and
2977 Scheme values has been added.
2979 These functions follow a common naming scheme and are designed to be
2980 easier to use, thread-safe and more future-proof than the older
2983 - int scm_is_* (...)
2985 These are predicates that return a C boolean: 1 or 0. Instead of
2986 SCM_NFALSEP, you can now use scm_is_true, for example.
2988 - <type> scm_to_<type> (SCM val, ...)
2990 These are functions that convert a Scheme value into an appropriate
2991 C value. For example, you can use scm_to_int to safely convert from
2994 - SCM scm_from_<type> (<type> val, ...)
2996 These functions convert from a C type to a SCM value; for example,
2997 scm_from_int for ints.
2999 There is a huge number of these functions, for numbers, strings,
3000 symbols, vectors, etc. They are documented in the reference manual in
3001 the API section together with the types that they apply to.
3003 ** New functions for dealing with complex numbers in C have been added.
3005 The new functions are scm_c_make_rectangular, scm_c_make_polar,
3006 scm_c_real_part, scm_c_imag_part, scm_c_magnitude and scm_c_angle.
3007 They work like scm_make_rectangular etc but take or return doubles
3010 ** The function scm_make_complex has been discouraged.
3012 Use scm_c_make_rectangular instead.
3014 ** The INUM macros have been deprecated.
3016 A lot of code uses these macros to do general integer conversions,
3017 although the macros only work correctly with fixnums. Use the
3018 following alternatives.
3020 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
3021 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
3022 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
3023 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
3025 SCM_VALIDATE_INUM_* -> Do not use these; scm_to_int, etc. will
3026 do the validating for you.
3028 ** The scm_num2<type> and scm_<type>2num functions and scm_make_real
3029 have been discouraged.
3031 Use the newer scm_to_<type> and scm_from_<type> functions instead for
3032 new code. The functions have been discouraged since they don't fit
3035 ** The 'boolean' macros SCM_FALSEP etc have been discouraged.
3037 They have strange names, especially SCM_NFALSEP, and SCM_BOOLP
3038 evaluates its argument twice. Use scm_is_true, etc. instead for new
3041 ** The macro SCM_EQ_P has been discouraged.
3043 Use scm_is_eq for new code, which fits better into the naming
3046 ** The macros SCM_CONSP, SCM_NCONSP, SCM_NULLP, and SCM_NNULLP have
3049 Use the function scm_is_pair or scm_is_null instead.
3051 ** The functions scm_round and scm_truncate have been deprecated and
3052 are now available as scm_c_round and scm_c_truncate, respectively.
3054 These functions occupy the names that scm_round_number and
3055 scm_truncate_number should have.
3057 ** The functions scm_c_string2str, scm_c_substring2str, and
3058 scm_c_symbol2str have been deprecated.
3060 Use scm_to_locale_stringbuf or similar instead, maybe together with
3063 ** New functions scm_c_make_string, scm_c_string_length,
3064 scm_c_string_ref, scm_c_string_set_x, scm_c_substring,
3065 scm_c_substring_shared, scm_c_substring_copy.
3067 These are like scm_make_string, scm_length, etc. but are slightly
3068 easier to use from C.
3070 ** The macros SCM_STRINGP, SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_STRING_LENGTH,
3071 SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, and SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH have been deprecated.
3073 They export too many assumptions about the implementation of strings
3074 and symbols that are no longer true in the presence of
3075 mutation-sharing substrings and when Guile switches to some form of
3078 When working with strings, it is often best to use the normal string
3079 functions provided by Guile, such as scm_c_string_ref,
3080 scm_c_string_set_x, scm_string_append, etc. Be sure to look in the
3081 manual since many more such functions are now provided than
3084 When you want to convert a SCM string to a C string, use the
3085 scm_to_locale_string function or similar instead. For symbols, use
3086 scm_symbol_to_string and then work with that string. Because of the
3087 new string representation, scm_symbol_to_string does not need to copy
3088 and is thus quite efficient.
3090 ** Some string, symbol and keyword functions have been discouraged.
3092 They don't fit into the uniform naming scheme and are not explicit
3093 about the character encoding.
3095 Replace according to the following table:
3097 scm_allocate_string -> scm_c_make_string
3098 scm_take_str -> scm_take_locale_stringn
3099 scm_take0str -> scm_take_locale_string
3100 scm_mem2string -> scm_from_locale_stringn
3101 scm_str2string -> scm_from_locale_string
3102 scm_makfrom0str -> scm_from_locale_string
3103 scm_mem2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symboln
3104 scm_mem2uninterned_symbol -> scm_from_locale_stringn + scm_make_symbol
3105 scm_str2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symbol
3107 SCM_SYMBOL_HASH -> scm_hashq
3108 SCM_SYMBOL_INTERNED_P -> scm_symbol_interned_p
3110 scm_c_make_keyword -> scm_from_locale_keyword
3112 ** The functions scm_keyword_to_symbol and sym_symbol_to_keyword are
3113 now also available to C code.
3115 ** SCM_KEYWORDP and SCM_KEYWORDSYM have been deprecated.
3117 Use scm_is_keyword and scm_keyword_to_symbol instead, but note that
3118 the latter returns the true name of the keyword, not the 'dash name',
3119 as SCM_KEYWORDSYM used to do.
3121 ** A new way to access arrays in a thread-safe and efficient way has
3124 See the manual, node "Accessing Arrays From C".
3126 ** The old uniform vector and bitvector implementations have been
3127 unceremoniously removed.
3129 This implementation exposed the details of the tagging system of
3130 Guile. Use the new C API explained in the manual in node "Uniform
3131 Numeric Vectors" and "Bit Vectors", respectively.
3133 The following macros are gone: SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE,
3134 SCM_UVECTOR_MAXLENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_UVECTOR_TAG,
3135 SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVECTOR_P, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE,
3136 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
3137 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_BITVECTOR_TAG,
3138 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVEC_REF, SCM_BITVEC_SET,
3141 ** The macros dealing with vectors have been deprecated.
3143 Use the new functions scm_is_vector, scm_vector_elements,
3144 scm_vector_writable_elements, etc, or scm_is_simple_vector,
3145 SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_REF, SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_SET, etc instead. See the
3146 manual for more details.
3148 Deprecated are SCM_VECTORP, SCM_VELTS, SCM_VECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
3149 SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_REF, SCM_VECTOR_SET, SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS.
3151 The following macros have been removed: SCM_VECTOR_BASE,
3152 SCM_SET_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_MAKE_VECTOR_TAG, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH,
3153 SCM_VELTS_AS_STACKITEMS, SCM_SETVELTS, SCM_GC_WRITABLE_VELTS.
3155 ** Some C functions and macros related to arrays have been deprecated.
3157 Migrate according to the following table:
3159 scm_make_uve -> scm_make_typed_array, scm_make_u8vector etc.
3160 scm_make_ra -> scm_make_array
3161 scm_shap2ra -> scm_make_array
3162 scm_cvref -> scm_c_generalized_vector_ref
3163 scm_ra_set_contp -> do not use
3164 scm_aind -> scm_array_handle_pos
3165 scm_raprin1 -> scm_display or scm_write
3167 SCM_ARRAYP -> scm_is_array
3168 SCM_ARRAY_NDIM -> scm_c_array_rank
3169 SCM_ARRAY_DIMS -> scm_array_handle_dims
3170 SCM_ARRAY_CONTP -> do not use
3171 SCM_ARRAY_MEM -> do not use
3172 SCM_ARRAY_V -> scm_array_handle_elements or similar
3173 SCM_ARRAY_BASE -> do not use
3175 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
3177 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which returns a pointer
3178 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
3180 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
3181 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
3182 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
3183 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
3185 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SCM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
3187 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
3188 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
3189 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
3191 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
3192 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
3194 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
3195 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
3196 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
3197 smob word. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
3199 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and re-entries.
3201 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
3202 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
3203 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
3204 prevent a potential memory leak:
3211 scm_dynwind_begin (0);
3213 mem = scm_malloc (100);
3214 scm_dynwind_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY);
3216 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
3217 SCM_DYNWIND_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless.
3224 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY, MEM will be freed by
3225 SCM_DYNWIND_END as well.
3229 For full documentation, see the node "Dynamic Wind" in the manual.
3231 ** New function scm_dynwind_free
3233 This function calls 'free' on a given pointer when a dynwind context
3234 is left. Thus the call to scm_dynwind_unwind_handler above could be
3235 replaced with simply scm_dynwind_free (mem).
3237 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
3238 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
3240 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
3242 ** New functions scm_dynwind_block_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs
3244 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
3245 scm_dynwind_block_asyncs in a 'dynwind context' (see above). Likewise for
3246 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs.
3248 ** The macros SCM_DEFER_INTS, SCM_ALLOW_INTS, SCM_REDEFER_INTS,
3249 SCM_REALLOW_INTS have been deprecated.
3251 They do no longer fulfill their original role of blocking signal
3252 delivery. Depending on what you want to achieve, replace a pair of
3253 SCM_DEFER_INTS and SCM_ALLOW_INTS with a dynwind context that locks a
3254 mutex, blocks asyncs, or both. See node "Critical Sections" in the
3257 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
3259 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
3260 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
3261 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
3263 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
3265 C code can now use scm_dynwind_current_<foo>_port in a 'dynwind
3266 context' (see above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
3268 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
3270 C code can now use scm_dynwind_fluid in a 'dynwind context' (see
3271 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
3273 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
3275 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
3276 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
3277 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
3279 ** The functions scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed.
3281 You should not have used them.
3283 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
3285 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
3286 private or renamed with a more suitable public name.
3288 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
3290 This macro is not intended for public use.
3292 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
3294 Use scm_is_true (scm_inexact_p (...)) instead.
3296 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
3298 Use scm_is_real instead.
3300 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
3302 Use scm_is_complex instead.
3304 ** Some preprocessor defines have been deprecated.
3306 These defines indicated whether a certain feature was present in Guile
3307 or not. Going forward, assume that the features are always present.
3309 The macros are: USE_THREADS, GUILE_ISELECT, READER_EXTENSIONS,
3310 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS, DYNAMIC_LINKING.
3312 The following macros have been removed completely: MEMOIZE_LOCALS,
3313 SCM_RECKLESS, SCM_CAUTIOUS.
3315 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
3317 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
3320 ** New function: scm_effective_version
3322 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
3323 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
3324 to the distribution" above.
3326 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
3328 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
3329 arguments are now passed directly:
3331 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
3333 This is an incompatible change.
3335 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
3337 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
3338 function in the init section.
3340 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
3342 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
3344 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
3345 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
3346 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
3347 stays roughly constant.
3349 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
3350 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
3351 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
3352 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
3353 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
3356 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
3357 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
3358 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
3359 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
3361 For understanding the memory usage of a GUILE program, the routine
3362 gc-live-object-stats returns an alist containing the number of live
3363 objects for every type.
3366 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
3368 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
3370 ** The struct scm_cell type has been renamed to scm_t_cell
3372 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
3373 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
3374 initializes a new cell (see below).
3376 ** New functions for memory management
3378 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
3379 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
3380 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
3381 cause aborts in long running programs.
3383 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
3384 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
3386 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
3387 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
3388 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
3389 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
3390 details and for upgrading instructions.
3392 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
3393 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
3394 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
3396 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
3398 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
3399 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
3400 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
3401 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
3402 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
3404 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
3405 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
3406 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
3408 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
3409 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
3411 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
3413 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old
3414 macros had problems because with them allocation and initialization
3415 was separated and the GC could sometimes observe half initialized
3416 cells. Only careful coding by the user of SCM_NEWCELL and
3417 SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
3419 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
3421 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
3424 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
3426 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
3428 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
3430 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or to define macros in
3431 Scheme, using 'define-macro'.
3433 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
3435 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
3436 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
3438 ** The names scm_internal_select, scm_thread_sleep, and
3439 scm_thread_usleep have been discouraged.
3441 Use scm_std_select, scm_std_sleep, scm_std_usleep instead.
3443 ** The GC can no longer be blocked.
3445 The global flags scm_gc_heap_lock and scm_block_gc have been removed.
3446 The GC can now run (partially) concurrently with other code and thus
3447 blocking it is not well defined.
3449 ** Many definitions have been removed that were previously deprecated.
3451 scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify,
3452 scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
3453 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2,
3454 scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY,
3455 SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED,
3456 scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL,
3457 SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL,
3458 SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG,
3459 SCM_NUM_SIGS, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
3460 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
3461 scm_eval2, root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
3462 SCM_RWSTRINGP, scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring,
3463 scm_tc7_substring, sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP,
3464 SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
3465 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
3466 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
3467 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
3468 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
3469 scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern, scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
3470 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
3471 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
3472 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
3473 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
3474 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
3475 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
3476 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
3477 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
3478 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
3479 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
3480 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable,
3481 SCM_CHARS, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH.
3483 * Changes to bundled modules
3487 Using the (ice-9 debug) module no longer automatically switches Guile
3488 to use the debugging evaluator. If you want to switch to the
3489 debugging evaluator (which is needed for backtrace information if you
3490 hit an error), please add an explicit "(debug-enable 'debug)" to your
3491 code just after the code to use (ice-9 debug).
3494 Changes since Guile 1.4:
3496 * Changes to the distribution
3498 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
3500 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
3502 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
3503 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
3504 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
3505 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
3506 indicate major changes in Guile.
3508 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
3509 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
3510 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
3511 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
3513 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
3514 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
3515 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
3516 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
3517 micro version number.
3519 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
3521 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
3523 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
3524 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
3526 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
3528 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
3529 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
3530 See INSTALL and README for more information.
3532 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
3534 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
3535 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
3536 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
3539 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
3541 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
3544 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
3546 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
3547 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
3549 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
3551 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
3552 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
3555 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
3557 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
3560 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
3563 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
3565 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
3567 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
3568 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
3569 open-output-string, get-output-string.
3571 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
3573 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
3575 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
3578 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
3580 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
3582 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
3584 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
3585 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
3586 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
3588 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
3590 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
3592 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
3593 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
3602 See README there for more info.
3604 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
3605 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
3608 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
3610 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
3612 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
3614 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
3615 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
3616 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
3618 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
3620 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
3621 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
3622 to be named `and-let*', of course.
3624 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
3625 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
3627 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
3630 (oop goops describe)
3632 (oop goops active-slot)
3633 (oop goops composite-slot)
3635 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
3636 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
3637 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
3639 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
3641 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
3642 in the default environment:
3644 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
3645 %read-line write-line
3647 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
3648 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
3650 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
3652 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
3655 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
3656 can be used for similar functionality.
3658 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
3660 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
3661 it defines two procedures:
3663 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
3665 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
3666 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
3667 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
3670 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
3672 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
3673 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
3674 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
3675 write large strings.
3677 ** New module (ice-9 match)
3679 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
3680 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
3682 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
3684 for complete documentation.
3686 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
3688 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
3689 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
3690 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
3691 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
3693 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
3694 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
3698 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
3699 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
3700 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
3703 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
3706 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
3707 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
3709 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
3710 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
3713 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
3716 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
3718 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
3720 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3722 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
3724 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
3725 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
3726 Scheme programs easier.
3728 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
3729 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
3730 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
3731 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
3732 `cond-expand' when using this option.
3735 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
3736 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
3738 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
3741 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
3743 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
3744 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
3745 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
3748 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3750 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
3752 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
3753 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
3754 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
3755 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
3756 was also ASCII, for example.
3758 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
3760 tag - no replacement.
3761 fseek - replaced by seek.
3762 list* - replaced by cons*.
3764 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
3768 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
3769 (define m (make-safe-module))
3770 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
3771 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
3772 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
3774 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
3776 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
3777 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
3778 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
3780 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
3782 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
3783 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
3784 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
3785 from the issues related to the module system.
3787 *** New function: load-extension
3789 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
3791 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
3793 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
3794 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
3795 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
3797 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
3799 This function registers a initialization function for use by
3800 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
3801 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
3802 support dynamic linking).
3804 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
3806 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
3807 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
3808 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
3809 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
3812 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
3813 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
3814 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
3815 library and initialize it explicitly.
3817 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
3818 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
3820 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
3822 (define-module (foo bar))
3824 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
3826 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
3828 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
3829 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
3831 (scheme-report-environment 5)
3832 (null-environment 5)
3833 (interaction-environment)
3839 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
3841 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
3842 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
3843 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
3844 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
3846 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
3847 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
3848 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
3849 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
3850 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
3851 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
3852 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
3853 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
3854 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
3855 one eval to the next.
3857 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
3858 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
3859 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
3860 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
3861 subforms are at the top-level as well.
3863 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
3864 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
3865 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
3866 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
3867 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
3868 used in a lexical environment.
3870 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
3871 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
3872 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
3873 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
3874 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
3875 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
3877 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
3879 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
3880 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
3881 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
3882 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
3883 new facilities: selection and renaming.
3885 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
3886 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
3887 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
3889 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
3890 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
3892 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
3893 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
3894 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
3896 (remove-if . zonk-y)
3897 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
3899 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
3900 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
3901 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
3902 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
3905 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
3906 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
3907 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
3908 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
3910 (remove-if . zonk-y)
3911 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
3912 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
3914 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
3915 ;; and all four by upcasing.
3916 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
3917 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
3918 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
3920 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
3922 (remove-if . zonk-y)
3923 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
3924 :renamer upcase-symbol))
3926 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
3927 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
3928 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
3930 See manual for more info.
3932 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
3934 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
3935 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
3936 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
3938 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
3940 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
3941 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
3942 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
3944 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
3945 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
3946 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
3947 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
3949 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
3951 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
3952 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
3954 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
3955 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
3956 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
3957 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
3958 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
3961 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
3962 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
3963 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
3964 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
3965 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
3966 successful and #f if it wasn't.
3968 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
3969 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
3970 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
3971 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
3972 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
3974 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
3975 objects are usually permanent.
3977 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
3978 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
3980 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
3982 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
3983 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
3986 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
3990 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
3995 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
3997 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
3998 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
3999 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
4000 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
4002 ** New function `make-object-property'
4004 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
4005 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
4009 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
4010 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
4014 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
4015 source properties eventually.
4017 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
4019 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
4020 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
4021 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
4023 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
4024 will be removed in the next release.
4026 ** New define-module option: pure
4028 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
4033 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
4036 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
4038 Export names NAME1 ...
4040 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
4041 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
4045 (define-module (foo)
4047 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
4050 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
4055 ** New function: object->string OBJ
4057 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
4059 ** New function: port? X
4061 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
4062 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
4064 ** New function: file-port?
4066 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
4068 ** New function: port-for-each proc
4070 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
4071 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
4072 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
4073 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
4074 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
4076 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
4078 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
4079 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
4080 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
4081 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
4082 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
4085 ** New function: close-fdes fd
4087 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
4088 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
4089 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
4090 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
4093 ** New function: crypt password salt
4095 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
4098 ** New function: chroot path
4100 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
4102 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
4104 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
4107 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
4109 Get or set the priority of the running process.
4111 ** New function: getpass prompt
4113 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
4116 ** New function: flock file operation
4118 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
4120 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
4122 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
4125 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
4127 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
4128 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
4129 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
4130 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
4131 of the temporary file.
4133 ** New function: open-input-string string
4135 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
4136 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
4137 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
4139 ** New function: open-output-string
4141 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
4142 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
4144 ** New function: get-output-string
4146 Return the contents of an output string port.
4148 ** New function: identity
4150 Return the argument.
4152 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
4153 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
4155 ** New function: inet-pton family address
4157 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
4158 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
4159 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
4162 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
4163 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
4165 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
4167 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
4168 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
4169 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
4172 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
4173 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
4174 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
4178 Use `identity' instead.
4184 ** Deprecated: return-it
4188 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
4190 Use `string-length' instead.
4192 ** Deprecated: flags
4194 Use `logior' instead.
4196 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
4198 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
4199 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
4200 port-for-each is more flexible.
4202 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
4203 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
4204 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
4206 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
4208 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
4210 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
4212 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
4214 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
4216 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
4217 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
4219 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
4220 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
4222 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
4223 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
4225 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
4227 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
4228 Removed function: builtin-bindings
4230 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
4231 Use module system operations for all variables.
4233 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
4235 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
4238 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
4240 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
4241 The following bugs have been fixed:
4243 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
4244 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
4247 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
4248 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
4249 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
4251 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
4252 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
4254 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
4255 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
4258 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
4259 The expansion used to be like so:
4261 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
4263 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
4265 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
4267 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
4268 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
4270 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
4272 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
4273 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
4274 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
4278 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
4279 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
4281 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
4286 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
4287 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
4289 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
4290 and `d', other keywords allowed.
4291 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
4293 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
4296 * Changes to the C interface
4298 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
4300 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
4301 with "_t". What a concept.
4303 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
4305 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
4307 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
4311 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
4312 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
4314 *** C Functions removed
4316 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
4317 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
4318 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
4319 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
4320 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
4321 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
4322 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
4324 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
4326 Use scm_mem2string instead.
4328 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
4330 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
4332 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
4333 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
4335 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
4337 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
4340 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
4342 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
4344 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
4346 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
4347 Evaluation" in the manual.
4349 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
4351 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
4352 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
4354 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
4356 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
4357 Constructors" in the manual.
4359 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
4361 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
4362 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
4364 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
4366 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
4368 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
4369 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
4370 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
4372 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
4374 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
4376 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
4377 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
4378 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
4381 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
4383 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
4385 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
4386 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
4388 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
4390 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
4391 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
4392 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
4393 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
4395 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
4396 scm_primitive_property_ref
4397 scm_primitive_property_set_x
4398 scm_primitive_property_del_x
4400 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
4401 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
4403 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
4405 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
4406 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
4407 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
4408 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
4410 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
4412 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
4413 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
4414 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
4415 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
4416 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
4417 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
4418 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
4420 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
4421 scm_remember_upto_here
4423 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
4425 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
4427 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
4428 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
4430 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
4432 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
4434 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
4436 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
4438 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
4440 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
4441 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
4442 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
4443 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
4444 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
4445 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
4447 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
4449 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
4451 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
4452 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
4453 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
4455 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
4457 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
4458 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
4459 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
4461 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
4463 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
4464 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
4467 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
4470 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
4471 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
4474 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
4476 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
4478 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
4480 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
4482 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
4484 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
4486 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
4487 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
4488 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
4489 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
4490 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
4491 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
4492 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
4493 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
4494 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
4495 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
4496 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
4497 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
4498 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
4499 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
4500 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
4502 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
4503 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
4504 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
4505 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
4506 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
4507 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
4508 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
4509 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
4510 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
4511 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
4512 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
4513 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
4514 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
4515 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
4516 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
4517 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
4518 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
4519 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
4520 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
4521 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
4522 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
4523 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
4524 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
4525 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
4526 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
4527 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
4528 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
4529 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
4530 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
4532 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
4534 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
4536 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
4537 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
4539 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
4541 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
4543 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
4545 Use scm_string_hash instead.
4547 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
4549 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
4551 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
4553 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
4555 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
4558 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
4559 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
4561 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
4563 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
4565 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
4567 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
4569 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
4571 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
4573 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
4575 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
4578 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
4580 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
4582 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
4584 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
4585 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
4587 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
4588 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
4590 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
4592 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
4593 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
4594 scm_module_define, scm_define.
4596 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
4598 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
4600 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
4601 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
4603 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
4604 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
4605 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
4606 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
4608 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
4609 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
4610 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
4612 Use the new ones from above instead.
4614 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
4616 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
4617 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
4618 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
4620 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
4621 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
4623 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
4624 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
4627 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
4628 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
4630 Use the new functions instead.
4632 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
4635 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
4637 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
4639 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
4642 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
4644 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
4647 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
4649 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
4652 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
4653 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
4654 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
4656 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
4658 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
4659 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
4661 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
4662 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
4663 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
4664 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
4667 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
4669 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
4670 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
4671 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
4672 inexact for an exact.
4674 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
4675 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
4676 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
4679 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
4680 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
4681 accept an inexact argument.
4683 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
4684 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
4686 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
4689 ** New number validation macros:
4690 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
4694 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
4696 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
4697 scm_unprotect_object.
4699 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
4701 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
4703 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
4706 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
4708 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
4712 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
4714 * Changes to the distribution
4716 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
4718 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
4719 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
4720 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
4721 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
4722 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
4723 obtain these programs.
4724 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
4725 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
4727 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
4728 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
4729 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
4730 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
4731 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
4733 However, this approach means that minor differences between
4734 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
4735 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
4736 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
4740 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
4743 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
4744 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
4745 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
4746 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
4748 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
4750 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
4752 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
4753 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
4755 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
4756 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
4758 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
4759 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
4761 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
4762 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
4763 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
4764 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
4766 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
4768 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
4772 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
4773 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
4775 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
4777 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
4778 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
4780 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
4781 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
4782 number of objects of that kind.
4784 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
4786 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
4787 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
4788 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
4789 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
4790 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
4792 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
4794 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
4796 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
4798 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
4801 ** New module (ice-9 time)
4803 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
4805 ** New module (ice-9 history)
4807 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
4809 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4811 ** New command line option --debug
4813 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
4815 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
4817 ** New help facility
4819 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
4820 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
4821 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
4822 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
4823 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
4824 (help) gives this text
4826 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
4827 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
4829 Examples: (help help)
4831 (help "output-string")
4833 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
4835 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
4837 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
4838 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
4841 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
4842 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
4843 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
4846 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
4847 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
4848 use absolute filenames when possible.
4850 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
4851 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
4852 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
4855 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
4857 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
4858 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
4859 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
4860 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
4862 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
4864 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
4866 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
4867 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
4868 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
4870 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
4871 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
4872 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
4874 (read-enable 'positions)
4875 (debug-enable 'debug)
4877 ** Backtraces in scripts
4879 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
4883 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
4885 at the top of the script.
4887 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
4888 The second enables backtraces.)
4890 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
4892 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
4893 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
4894 substantially faster than before.
4896 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
4897 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
4899 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
4900 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
4902 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
4904 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
4905 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
4906 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
4908 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
4909 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
4910 when this hook is run in the future.
4912 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
4913 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
4915 ** Improvements to garbage collector
4917 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
4918 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
4921 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
4922 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
4923 more and more memory for certain programs.)
4925 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
4926 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
4928 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
4929 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
4931 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
4932 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
4933 in order not to need further allocation.)
4935 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
4938 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
4939 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
4940 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
4941 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
4943 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
4945 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
4948 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
4950 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
4953 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
4954 GC in percent of total heap size
4957 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
4958 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
4960 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
4962 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
4963 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
4965 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
4967 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
4968 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
4970 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
4972 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
4973 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
4977 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
4978 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
4980 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
4982 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4984 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
4986 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
4988 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
4990 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
4991 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
4993 (simple-format port message . args)
4994 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
4995 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
4996 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
4997 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
4998 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
4999 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
5000 Does not add a trailing newline."
5002 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
5004 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
5005 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
5007 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
5008 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
5010 ** Deprecated: list*
5012 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
5014 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
5016 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
5017 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
5019 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
5020 is returned as result.
5022 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
5024 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
5026 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
5028 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
5029 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
5032 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
5034 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
5036 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
5037 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
5039 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5041 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
5043 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
5045 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5047 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
5049 Thanks to Greg Badros!
5051 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
5053 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
5054 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
5055 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
5057 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
5060 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
5062 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
5063 the readability of argument checking.
5065 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
5067 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
5069 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
5071 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
5072 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
5073 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
5074 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
5075 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
5076 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
5077 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
5079 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
5081 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
5083 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
5084 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
5086 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
5088 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
5089 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
5092 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
5094 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
5095 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
5096 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
5098 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
5099 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
5100 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
5102 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
5103 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
5104 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
5105 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
5106 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
5107 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
5108 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
5110 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
5111 scm_end_input (object);
5112 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
5113 ptob->flush (object);
5115 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
5116 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
5119 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
5121 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
5123 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
5124 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
5125 removed in a future version.
5127 ** The format of error message strings has changed
5129 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
5130 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
5131 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
5132 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
5134 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
5135 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
5137 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
5140 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
5142 in your configure.in.
5144 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
5149 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
5155 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
5157 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
5161 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
5162 (define make-message string-append)
5164 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
5166 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
5170 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
5175 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
5179 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
5181 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
5182 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
5184 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
5186 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
5187 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
5188 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
5189 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
5190 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
5191 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
5193 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
5194 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
5195 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
5197 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
5198 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
5199 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
5202 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
5203 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
5204 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
5205 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
5206 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
5208 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
5209 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
5210 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
5211 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
5212 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
5213 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
5214 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
5216 Destructors are not yet implemented.
5218 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
5219 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
5220 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
5222 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
5223 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
5224 KEY in the calling thread.
5226 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
5227 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
5228 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
5229 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
5230 associated with the key.
5232 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
5234 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
5235 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
5237 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
5239 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
5240 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
5241 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
5243 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
5245 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
5246 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
5248 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
5250 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
5252 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
5253 returned is undefined.
5255 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
5256 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
5257 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
5259 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
5260 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
5261 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
5263 ** New C level GC hooks
5265 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
5267 scm_before_gc_c_hook
5270 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
5271 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
5272 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
5274 scm_before_mark_c_hook
5275 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
5276 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
5278 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
5279 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
5282 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
5284 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
5285 allocation parameters
5287 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
5288 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
5289 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
5293 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
5294 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
5295 scm_default_max_segment_size
5297 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
5299 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
5300 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
5302 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
5304 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
5305 object and count on the object being protected until
5306 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
5308 The functions also have better time complexity.
5310 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
5311 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
5312 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
5313 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
5314 are no longer needed.
5316 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
5318 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
5319 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
5320 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
5321 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
5323 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
5325 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
5327 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
5329 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
5330 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
5331 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
5332 until this issue has been settled.
5334 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
5336 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
5338 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
5341 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
5343 * Changes to system call interfaces:
5345 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
5346 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
5347 descriptors were checked.
5349 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
5350 atomically written to a pipe.
5352 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
5353 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
5354 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
5355 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
5356 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
5357 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
5358 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
5361 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
5362 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
5363 is changed without calling tzset.
5365 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
5367 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
5368 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
5369 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
5371 (define write-network-long
5372 (lambda (value port)
5373 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
5374 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
5375 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
5377 (define read-network-long
5379 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
5380 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
5381 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
5383 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
5384 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
5386 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
5387 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
5388 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
5389 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
5391 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
5392 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
5393 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
5394 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
5398 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
5400 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5404 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
5405 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
5406 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
5412 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
5413 for a description of available commands.
5415 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
5416 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
5417 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
5419 (debug-enable 'backwards)
5421 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
5422 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
5424 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
5426 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
5428 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
5429 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
5430 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
5431 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
5432 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
5433 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
5436 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
5438 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
5439 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
5440 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
5441 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
5443 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
5444 the file and should not be affected by this change.
5446 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
5448 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5450 ** Readline support has changed again.
5452 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
5453 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
5454 to activate readline is now
5456 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
5459 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
5461 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
5462 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
5463 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
5466 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
5467 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
5468 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
5471 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
5472 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
5473 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
5474 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
5475 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
5476 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
5478 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
5479 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
5481 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
5483 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
5484 object it receives is the same string passed to
5485 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
5486 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
5487 string, not the suffix.
5489 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
5490 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
5491 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
5493 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
5495 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
5496 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
5497 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
5498 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
5501 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
5503 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
5505 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
5506 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
5507 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
5508 appear from left to right.
5510 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
5513 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
5515 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
5516 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
5518 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
5522 *** New function: hook? OBJ
5524 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
5526 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
5528 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
5529 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
5530 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
5532 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
5534 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
5536 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
5538 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
5541 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
5543 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
5544 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
5545 mentioning it here anyway.
5547 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
5549 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
5550 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
5551 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
5552 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
5555 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
5557 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
5559 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
5561 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
5562 otherwise return #f.
5564 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
5566 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
5567 returned by `opendir'.
5569 ** New function: using-readline?
5571 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
5573 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
5575 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
5576 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
5578 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5580 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
5582 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
5583 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
5584 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
5586 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
5588 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
5589 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
5591 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
5593 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
5594 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
5595 documentation slots are not yet used.
5597 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
5599 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
5600 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
5601 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
5606 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
5607 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
5608 (string-append x y))
5610 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
5611 can also be used for concatenating strings.
5613 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
5614 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
5615 be made in a clean way.]
5617 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
5619 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
5621 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
5623 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
5624 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
5626 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
5628 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
5630 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
5632 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
5634 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
5635 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
5636 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
5637 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
5640 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
5642 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
5644 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
5646 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
5648 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
5649 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
5651 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
5653 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
5655 Evaluates the body of a special form.
5657 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
5659 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
5660 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
5661 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
5662 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
5663 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
5664 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
5666 This should not make any difference for most users.
5668 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
5670 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
5671 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
5673 *** New functions for applying generic functions
5675 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
5676 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
5677 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
5678 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
5679 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
5681 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
5683 It is now replaced by:
5685 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
5687 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
5688 binds a variable named NAME to it.
5690 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
5692 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
5693 This might change when we get the new module system.
5695 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
5699 Changes since Guile 1.3:
5701 * Changes to mailing lists
5703 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
5705 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
5708 * Changes to the distribution
5710 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
5712 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
5713 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
5714 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
5715 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
5716 you explicitly specify it.
5718 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
5719 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
5720 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
5721 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
5722 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
5725 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
5726 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
5727 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
5728 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
5730 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
5731 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
5732 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
5735 You can activate the readline support by issuing
5737 (use-modules (readline-activator))
5740 from your ".guile" file, for example.
5742 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5744 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
5745 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
5746 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
5747 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
5749 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
5750 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
5753 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5755 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
5756 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
5757 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
5758 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
5759 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
5760 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
5761 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
5762 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
5774 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
5775 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
5776 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
5777 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
5778 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
5783 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
5784 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
5792 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
5797 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
5798 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
5801 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
5802 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
5803 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
5804 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
5806 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
5808 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
5810 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
5811 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
5813 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
5815 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
5817 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
5818 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
5820 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
5823 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
5825 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
5827 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
5829 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
5831 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
5833 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
5835 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
5836 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
5837 when the hook was created.
5839 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
5840 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
5841 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
5842 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
5843 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
5844 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
5845 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
5846 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
5847 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
5849 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
5850 the dlopen family of functions.
5852 ** New function `provided?'
5854 - Function: provided? FEATURE
5855 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
5856 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
5857 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
5859 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
5861 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
5862 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
5863 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
5864 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
5867 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
5868 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
5869 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
5870 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
5872 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
5873 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
5874 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
5877 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
5878 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
5879 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
5880 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
5881 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
5882 but with the flag set.
5884 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
5886 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
5887 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
5889 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
5890 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
5891 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
5892 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
5893 available Scheme format implementations.
5895 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
5896 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
5897 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
5898 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
5899 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
5900 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
5901 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
5902 output is to the current error port if available by the
5903 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
5906 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
5907 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
5908 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
5909 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
5910 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
5911 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
5912 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
5913 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
5915 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
5916 be executed at a time.
5919 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
5921 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
5922 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
5923 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
5925 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
5926 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
5927 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
5928 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
5929 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
5930 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
5931 general form of a directive is:
5933 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
5935 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
5937 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
5939 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
5940 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
5941 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
5944 Any (print as `display' does).
5948 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
5952 S-expression (print as `write' does).
5956 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
5962 print number sign always.
5965 print comma separated.
5967 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
5973 print number sign always.
5976 print comma separated.
5978 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
5984 print number sign always.
5987 print comma separated.
5989 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
5995 print number sign always.
5998 print comma separated.
6000 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
6005 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
6009 print a number as a Roman numeral.
6012 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
6015 print a number as an ordinal English number.
6018 print a number as a cardinal English number.
6023 prints `y' and `ies'.
6026 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
6029 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
6034 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
6038 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
6041 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
6042 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
6044 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
6047 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
6048 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
6050 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
6053 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
6055 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
6057 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
6060 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
6062 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
6064 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
6067 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
6070 The sign appears before the padding.
6078 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
6080 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
6085 print N page separators.
6095 newline is ignored, white space left.
6098 newline is left, white space ignored.
6103 relative tabulation.
6109 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
6111 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
6114 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
6116 converts by `string-capitalize'.
6119 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
6122 converts by `string-upcase'.
6125 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
6127 jumps N arguments forward.
6130 jumps 1 argument backward.
6133 jumps N arguments backward.
6136 jumps to the 0th argument.
6139 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
6141 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
6142 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
6144 take argument from N.
6147 true test conditional.
6150 if-else-then conditional.
6156 default clause follows.
6159 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
6161 at most N iterations.
6164 args from next arg (a list of lists).
6167 args from the rest of arguments.
6170 args from the rest args (lists).
6181 aborts if N <= M <= K
6183 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
6186 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
6189 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
6195 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
6197 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
6199 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
6200 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
6201 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
6202 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
6203 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
6204 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
6208 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
6212 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
6218 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
6221 Print a `#\space' character
6223 print N `#\space' characters.
6226 Print a `#\tab' character
6228 print N `#\tab' characters.
6231 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
6232 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
6233 must be a positive decimal number.
6236 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
6237 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
6238 be processed by `read'.
6241 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
6242 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
6243 be processed by `read'.
6246 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
6249 prints format version.
6252 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
6253 and format it accordingly.
6255 *** Configuration Variables
6257 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
6258 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
6259 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
6260 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
6263 format:symbol-case-conv
6264 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
6265 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
6266 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
6267 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
6268 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
6270 format:iobj-case-conv
6271 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
6272 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
6275 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
6278 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
6284 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
6285 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
6286 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
6287 `format' padding style.
6290 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
6291 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
6292 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
6293 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
6297 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
6298 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
6299 directive parameters or modifiers)).
6302 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
6303 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
6304 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
6305 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
6306 parameters or modifiers)).
6309 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
6311 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
6313 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
6314 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
6316 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
6317 string-downcase! functions.
6319 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
6320 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
6322 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
6325 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
6328 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
6329 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
6331 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
6333 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
6334 the symbol had be read by `read'.
6336 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
6337 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
6338 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
6339 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
6340 would if STRING were input.
6342 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
6344 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
6345 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
6346 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
6347 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
6350 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
6352 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
6353 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
6356 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
6358 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
6359 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
6361 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
6362 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
6364 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
6365 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
6366 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
6367 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
6369 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
6370 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
6372 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
6373 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
6374 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
6376 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
6377 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
6379 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
6380 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
6381 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
6382 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
6383 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
6385 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
6386 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
6387 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
6388 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
6389 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
6390 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
6392 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
6393 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
6394 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
6397 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
6398 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
6399 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
6400 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
6401 the following grammar:
6402 ((apples (single-char #\a))
6403 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
6404 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
6405 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
6406 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
6407 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
6408 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
6409 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
6410 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
6411 last option in its combination)
6413 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
6414 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
6415 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
6416 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
6418 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
6419 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
6420 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
6422 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
6423 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
6424 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
6426 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
6427 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
6428 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
6429 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
6430 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
6431 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
6432 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
6433 ordinary argument strings.
6435 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
6436 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
6437 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
6438 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
6440 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
6441 as a list, associated with the empty list.
6443 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
6444 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
6445 - a required option is omitted
6446 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
6447 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
6448 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
6449 - an option predicate fails
6454 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
6457 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
6458 (verbose (required? #f)
6461 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
6462 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
6463 (predicate ,string?))))
6465 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
6466 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
6468 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
6469 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
6470 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
6471 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
6474 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
6476 It will be removed in a few releases.
6478 ** New syntax: lambda*
6479 ** New syntax: define*
6480 ** New syntax: define*-public
6481 ** New syntax: defmacro*
6482 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
6483 Guile now supports optional arguments.
6485 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
6486 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
6487 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
6488 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
6489 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
6491 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
6492 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
6493 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
6495 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
6497 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
6498 and examples for `lambda*':
6501 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
6503 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
6504 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
6505 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
6506 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
6507 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
6508 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
6509 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
6510 can be checked with the bound? macro.
6512 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
6514 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
6515 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
6516 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
6517 are given as keywords are bound to values.
6519 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
6520 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
6521 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
6522 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
6523 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
6524 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
6525 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
6526 and until the procedure is called.
6528 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
6530 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
6531 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
6532 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
6533 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
6534 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
6535 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
6536 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
6537 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
6538 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
6539 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
6541 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
6542 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
6543 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
6544 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
6547 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
6549 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
6550 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
6551 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
6552 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
6554 ** New syntax: and-let*
6555 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
6557 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
6558 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
6559 (<variable> <expression>)
6562 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
6563 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
6564 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
6567 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
6568 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
6569 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
6570 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
6571 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
6572 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
6573 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
6575 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
6576 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
6577 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
6578 shadow earlier bindings.
6580 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
6582 ** New sorting functions
6584 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
6585 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
6586 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
6587 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
6589 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
6590 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
6593 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
6594 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
6595 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
6597 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
6598 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
6599 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
6600 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
6602 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
6603 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
6604 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
6605 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
6606 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
6609 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
6610 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
6611 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
6612 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
6613 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
6614 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
6616 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
6617 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
6618 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
6620 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
6621 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
6622 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
6625 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
6626 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
6627 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
6629 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
6630 Added for compatibility with scsh.
6632 ** New built-in random number support
6634 *** New function: random N [STATE]
6635 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
6636 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
6637 returned have a uniform distribution.
6639 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
6640 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
6641 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
6642 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
6643 effect of the `random' operation.
6645 *** New variable: *random-state*
6646 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
6647 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
6648 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
6649 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
6650 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
6653 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
6654 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
6655 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
6656 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
6657 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
6659 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
6660 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
6661 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
6662 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
6663 initialized using SEED.
6665 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
6666 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
6667 range between 0 and 1.
6669 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
6670 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
6671 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
6672 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
6673 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
6674 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
6675 or a uniform vector of doubles.
6677 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
6678 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
6679 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
6680 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
6681 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
6682 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
6684 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
6685 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
6686 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
6687 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
6689 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
6690 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
6691 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
6692 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
6694 *** New function: random:exp STATE
6695 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
6696 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
6698 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
6700 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
6703 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
6704 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
6707 ** New function: make-guardian
6708 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
6709 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
6710 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
6711 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
6712 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
6714 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
6715 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
6716 one object if at all.
6718 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
6719 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
6720 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
6722 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
6723 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
6724 read again in last-in first-out order.
6726 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
6727 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
6729 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
6731 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
6732 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
6733 file position is used.
6735 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
6736 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
6737 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
6739 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
6740 redefined using seek.
6742 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
6743 size is not supplied.
6745 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
6746 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
6748 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
6749 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
6751 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
6753 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
6754 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
6755 and returns the contents as a single string.
6757 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
6758 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
6759 lists in serial order.
6761 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
6762 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
6763 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
6765 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
6766 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
6767 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
6768 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
6770 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
6771 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
6772 and #f if an error occured.
6774 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
6776 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
6777 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
6778 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
6779 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
6781 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
6783 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
6786 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
6788 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
6791 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6795 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
6796 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
6798 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
6799 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
6803 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6805 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
6807 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
6808 binds a variable named NAME to it.
6810 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
6812 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
6813 might change when we get the new module system.
6815 ** The smob interface
6817 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
6818 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
6820 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
6822 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
6826 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
6827 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
6828 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
6829 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
6830 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
6831 will be freed by the default free function.
6833 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
6834 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
6835 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
6836 `scm_make_smob_type'.
6838 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
6839 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
6840 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
6841 `scm_make_smob_type'.
6843 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
6845 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
6846 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
6850 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
6851 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
6852 `scm_make_smob_type'.
6854 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
6855 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
6856 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
6857 `scm_make_smob_type'.
6859 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
6860 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
6861 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
6863 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
6864 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
6865 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
6866 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
6868 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
6869 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
6870 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
6872 *** scm_newptob has been removed
6876 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
6878 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
6879 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
6880 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
6882 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
6883 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
6884 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
6886 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
6887 a string port's buffer.
6889 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
6890 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
6891 function pointers which together define the current random number
6892 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
6893 number library functions.
6895 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
6898 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
6899 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
6902 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
6903 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
6905 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
6906 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
6908 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
6909 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
6912 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
6913 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
6914 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
6915 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
6917 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
6918 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
6919 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
6920 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
6921 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
6922 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
6923 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
6925 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
6926 by libguile and the application.
6928 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
6929 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
6930 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
6931 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
6933 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
6934 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
6936 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
6937 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
6938 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
6940 ** Random number library functions
6941 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
6942 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
6943 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
6945 The default random state is stored in:
6947 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
6948 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
6949 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
6954 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
6956 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
6957 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
6958 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
6959 isn't a random state.
6961 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
6962 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
6964 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
6965 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
6966 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
6967 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
6969 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
6970 Return 32 random bits.
6972 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
6973 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
6975 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
6976 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
6978 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
6979 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
6981 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
6982 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
6984 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
6985 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
6986 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
6990 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
6992 * Changes to the distribution
6994 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
6995 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
6996 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
6999 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
7000 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
7001 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
7003 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
7004 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
7005 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
7006 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
7009 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
7010 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
7011 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
7013 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
7015 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
7017 *** Function: batch-mode?
7019 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
7022 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
7024 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
7025 case has not been implemented.
7027 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
7028 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
7029 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
7032 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
7033 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
7035 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
7037 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
7039 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
7041 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
7042 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
7045 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
7046 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
7047 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
7048 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
7051 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
7053 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
7054 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
7055 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
7056 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
7057 find those libraries.
7059 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
7060 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
7063 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
7065 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
7066 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
7067 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
7068 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
7070 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
7071 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
7072 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
7076 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
7078 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
7079 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
7080 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
7083 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
7084 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
7085 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
7086 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
7088 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
7089 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
7092 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
7093 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
7094 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
7095 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
7096 compiler where to find the libraries.
7098 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
7099 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
7100 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
7102 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
7103 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
7104 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
7105 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
7106 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
7110 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
7112 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
7113 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
7114 internationalization support.
7116 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
7117 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
7118 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
7119 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
7120 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
7122 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
7123 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
7124 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
7125 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
7126 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
7128 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
7129 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
7130 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
7131 any GNU mirror site.
7133 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
7135 ** New function: add-history STRING
7136 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
7137 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
7138 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
7140 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
7142 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
7143 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
7144 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
7147 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
7148 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
7149 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
7151 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
7153 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
7156 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
7157 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
7160 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
7161 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
7162 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
7163 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
7164 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
7165 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
7167 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
7168 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
7169 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
7170 of the form mentioned above.
7172 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
7173 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
7174 returned in the special `rest' list.
7176 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
7177 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
7179 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
7181 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
7183 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
7185 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
7186 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
7187 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
7188 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
7189 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
7190 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
7191 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
7192 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
7195 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
7197 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
7199 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
7200 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
7203 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
7204 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
7205 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
7209 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
7210 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
7211 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
7212 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
7213 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
7214 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
7215 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
7216 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
7219 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
7221 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
7222 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
7223 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
7225 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
7227 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
7228 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
7230 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
7231 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
7232 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
7234 Why do we have this function?
7235 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
7236 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
7237 primitive, and display it differently, and
7238 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
7239 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
7242 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
7243 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
7246 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
7247 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
7248 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
7249 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
7251 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
7252 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
7255 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
7256 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
7258 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
7260 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
7261 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
7262 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
7263 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
7264 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
7265 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
7266 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
7269 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
7271 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
7272 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
7274 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
7275 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
7276 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
7277 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
7278 properly continue the print chain.
7280 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
7281 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
7282 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
7283 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
7284 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
7285 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
7286 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
7287 print-state, it is simply ignored.
7289 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
7290 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
7291 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
7292 safest to not check for these pairs.
7294 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
7295 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
7296 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
7297 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
7299 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
7301 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
7302 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
7304 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
7306 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
7308 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
7309 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
7310 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
7312 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
7313 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
7314 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
7316 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
7317 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
7318 the following functions and macros:
7320 Function: make-fluid
7322 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
7323 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
7324 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
7325 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
7326 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
7328 Function: fluid? OBJ
7330 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
7332 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
7333 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
7335 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
7336 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
7338 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
7340 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
7341 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
7342 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
7343 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
7344 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
7345 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
7346 modified by `with-fluids*'.
7348 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
7350 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
7351 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
7352 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
7353 should evaluate to a fluid.
7355 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
7357 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
7358 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
7359 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
7360 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
7361 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
7363 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
7366 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
7368 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
7370 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
7372 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
7375 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
7376 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
7377 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
7378 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
7379 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
7382 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
7383 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
7384 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
7386 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
7387 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
7388 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
7390 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
7391 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
7392 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
7393 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
7395 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
7396 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
7397 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
7398 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
7400 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
7401 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
7402 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
7403 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
7405 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
7406 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
7407 their revealed counts set to zero.
7409 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
7410 Returns an integer file descriptor.
7412 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
7413 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
7415 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
7416 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
7418 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
7419 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
7420 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
7422 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
7423 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
7424 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
7426 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
7427 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
7428 default environment inherited by child processes.
7430 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
7431 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
7432 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
7434 The return value is unspecified.
7436 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
7437 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
7438 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
7439 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
7440 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
7442 The return value is unspecified.
7444 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
7445 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
7453 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
7454 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
7457 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
7460 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
7461 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
7462 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
7464 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
7465 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
7466 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
7467 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
7470 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
7471 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
7473 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
7474 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
7475 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
7476 the `environ' procedure.
7478 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
7479 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
7482 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
7483 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
7485 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
7486 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
7487 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
7488 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
7490 *** procedure: times
7491 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
7492 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
7493 return a selected component:
7496 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
7500 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
7503 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
7507 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
7508 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
7512 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
7513 terminated child processes.
7515 ** Removed: list-length
7516 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
7517 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
7519 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
7521 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
7523 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
7525 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
7526 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
7527 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
7528 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
7530 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
7531 extra complexity it introduces.
7533 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
7534 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
7536 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
7537 variable to any non-empty value.
7539 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
7540 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
7542 * Changes to the gh_ interface
7544 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
7545 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
7547 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
7549 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
7550 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
7552 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
7554 ** vector handling routines
7556 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
7557 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
7558 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
7559 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
7560 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
7562 ** pair and list routines
7564 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
7567 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
7569 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
7572 * Changes to the scm_ interface
7574 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
7576 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
7577 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
7578 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
7579 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
7580 site-specific initialization code.
7582 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
7583 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
7584 initialization processes.
7586 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
7587 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
7588 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
7589 initialized properly.
7591 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
7592 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
7593 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
7595 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
7596 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
7597 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
7598 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
7599 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
7601 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
7603 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
7604 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
7605 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
7606 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
7607 objects the smob refers to get marked.
7609 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
7610 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
7611 which look like this:
7614 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
7616 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
7617 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
7620 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
7621 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
7624 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
7626 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
7627 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
7628 you will need to change your functions slightly.
7630 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
7631 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
7632 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
7633 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
7634 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
7636 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
7637 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
7639 int (*free) (SCM port);
7640 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
7641 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
7642 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
7646 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
7647 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
7648 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
7650 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
7653 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
7654 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
7655 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
7657 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
7658 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
7659 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
7662 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
7666 struct timeval *timeout);
7668 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
7669 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
7670 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
7671 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
7672 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
7673 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
7675 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
7676 scm_catch_body_t body,
7678 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
7681 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
7682 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
7683 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
7684 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
7685 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
7686 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
7688 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
7690 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
7693 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
7694 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
7695 spawning threads from application C code.
7697 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
7698 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
7699 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
7700 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
7701 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
7702 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
7704 ** Removed functions:
7706 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
7707 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
7709 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
7711 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
7712 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
7714 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
7716 ** mbstrings are now removed
7718 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
7719 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
7721 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
7723 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
7724 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
7725 their new names and arguments:
7727 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
7728 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
7729 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
7730 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
7733 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
7735 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
7737 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
7740 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
7742 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
7743 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
7744 pass a #f arg to catch.
7746 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
7748 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
7749 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
7752 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
7753 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
7754 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
7755 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
7756 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
7757 reclaim its storage.
7759 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
7760 worrying that some other function you call will call
7761 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
7762 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
7763 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
7764 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
7767 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
7769 * Changes to the distribution
7771 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
7772 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
7775 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
7776 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
7778 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
7779 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
7781 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
7783 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
7784 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
7785 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
7787 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
7789 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
7790 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
7791 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
7792 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
7793 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
7794 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
7796 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
7797 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
7798 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
7801 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
7802 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
7803 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
7804 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
7806 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
7807 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
7808 libraries to your link command:
7810 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
7811 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
7812 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
7813 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
7815 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
7816 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
7817 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
7819 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
7821 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
7822 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
7825 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
7827 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
7828 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
7829 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
7830 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
7831 searched is system dependent.
7833 (dynamic-object? VAL)
7835 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
7837 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
7839 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
7840 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
7842 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
7844 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
7845 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
7846 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
7847 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
7848 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
7851 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
7853 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
7854 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
7855 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
7856 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
7857 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
7859 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
7861 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
7862 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
7864 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
7866 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
7867 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
7868 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
7871 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
7873 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
7874 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
7875 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
7876 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
7878 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
7879 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
7881 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
7883 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
7884 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
7886 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
7888 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
7889 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
7897 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
7899 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
7900 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
7901 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
7902 a more informative way.
7904 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
7905 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
7906 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
7907 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
7908 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
7909 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
7911 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
7912 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
7915 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
7916 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
7917 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
7920 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
7921 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
7922 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
7923 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
7924 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
7925 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
7927 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
7928 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
7929 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
7930 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
7933 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
7934 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
7935 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
7936 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
7937 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
7938 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
7940 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
7941 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
7942 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
7943 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
7944 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
7946 *** regexp functions
7948 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
7949 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
7950 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
7952 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
7953 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
7954 with SCSH regular expressions.
7956 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
7957 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
7958 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
7959 position of STR at which to begin matching.
7961 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
7962 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
7963 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
7964 `string-match' returns `#f'.
7966 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
7967 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
7968 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
7969 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
7970 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
7971 match strings against the compiled regexp.
7973 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
7974 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
7975 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
7976 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
7977 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
7979 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
7981 **** Constant: regexp/extended
7982 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
7983 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
7984 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
7986 **** Constant: regexp/icase
7987 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
7988 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
7990 **** Constant: regexp/newline
7991 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
7993 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
7996 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
7997 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
7998 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
8000 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
8001 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
8002 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
8004 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
8005 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
8006 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
8007 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
8008 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
8011 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
8013 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
8014 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
8015 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
8016 used when different portions of a string are passed to
8017 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
8018 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
8020 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
8021 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
8022 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
8024 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
8025 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
8028 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
8029 and replace them with the contents of another string.
8031 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
8032 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
8033 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
8034 may be one of the following arguments:
8036 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
8038 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
8040 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
8041 the regexp match is written.
8043 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
8044 following the regexp match is written.
8046 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
8047 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
8050 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
8051 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
8052 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
8053 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
8054 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
8055 which should be matched against this regular expression.
8057 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
8060 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
8061 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
8062 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
8063 written out to PORT.
8065 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
8066 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
8067 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
8068 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
8069 will return after processing a single match.
8071 *** Match Structures
8073 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
8074 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
8075 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
8076 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
8077 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
8078 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
8081 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
8082 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
8083 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
8084 information about the original target string that was matched against a
8085 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
8087 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
8088 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
8089 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
8091 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
8092 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
8093 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
8094 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
8095 number N did not match, return `#f'.
8097 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
8098 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
8100 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
8101 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
8103 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
8104 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
8106 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
8107 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
8109 **** Function: match:count MATCH
8110 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
8111 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
8112 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
8114 **** Function: match:string MATCH
8115 Return the original TARGET string.
8117 *** Backslash Escapes
8119 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
8120 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
8121 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
8122 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
8123 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
8124 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
8126 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
8127 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
8128 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
8129 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
8130 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
8131 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
8132 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
8133 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
8135 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
8136 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
8137 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
8138 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
8139 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
8140 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
8141 each match a single backslash in the target string.
8143 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
8144 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
8145 return the resulting string.
8147 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
8148 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
8149 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
8150 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
8151 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
8152 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
8153 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
8154 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
8155 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
8156 translated to the single character `*'.
8158 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
8159 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
8160 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
8161 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
8162 consecutive backslashes:
8164 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
8166 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
8167 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
8168 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
8170 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
8171 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
8172 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
8173 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
8174 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
8175 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
8177 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
8179 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
8180 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
8181 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
8182 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
8183 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
8184 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
8185 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
8186 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
8187 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
8188 cumbersome escape syntax.
8190 * Changes to the gh_ interface
8192 * Changes to the scm_ interface
8194 * Changes to system call interfaces:
8196 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
8199 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
8201 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
8203 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
8206 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
8207 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
8208 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
8209 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
8210 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
8212 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
8213 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
8214 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
8215 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
8216 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
8217 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
8218 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
8221 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
8222 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
8223 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
8226 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
8227 `force-output' on every port open for output.
8229 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
8230 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
8231 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
8232 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
8233 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
8234 installed, you can say:
8236 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
8239 * Changes to the scm_ interface
8241 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
8242 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
8243 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
8244 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
8245 new dynamic roots and threads.
8248 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
8250 * Changes to the distribution.
8252 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
8254 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
8255 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
8256 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
8257 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
8258 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
8259 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
8260 programming language. These are packaged together because the
8261 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
8263 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
8266 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
8267 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
8272 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
8274 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
8275 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
8277 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
8278 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
8279 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
8280 the (command-line) function.
8281 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
8282 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
8283 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
8285 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
8286 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
8287 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
8288 command line arguments
8289 -ds do -s script at this point
8290 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
8291 -h, --help display this help and exit
8292 -v, --version display version information and exit
8293 \ read arguments from following script lines
8295 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
8296 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
8298 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
8301 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
8305 (main (command-line))
8307 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
8309 ekko a speckled gecko
8311 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
8312 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
8313 following list of command-line arguments:
8315 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
8317 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
8318 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
8319 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
8320 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
8321 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
8323 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
8325 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
8327 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
8328 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
8331 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
8332 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
8333 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
8334 SCSH) for circumventing them.
8336 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
8337 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
8338 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
8339 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
8341 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
8345 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
8349 If the user invokes this script as follows:
8351 ekko a speckled gecko
8353 Unix expands this into
8355 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
8357 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
8358 read from the second line of the script, producing:
8360 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
8362 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
8363 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
8365 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
8366 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
8367 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
8368 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
8369 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
8370 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
8371 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
8372 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
8373 it only terminates the argument list.)
8374 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
8375 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
8376 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
8377 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
8378 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
8379 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
8380 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
8381 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
8383 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
8385 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
8386 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
8387 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
8388 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
8389 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
8391 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
8392 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
8393 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
8395 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
8397 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
8398 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
8399 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
8400 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
8403 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
8404 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
8405 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
8407 * Changes to Scheme functions
8409 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
8410 and disabled by default.
8412 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
8413 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
8414 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
8415 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
8417 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
8419 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
8421 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
8422 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
8424 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
8425 (read-set! keywords #f)
8427 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
8428 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
8429 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
8432 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
8433 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
8434 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
8437 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
8438 support for Scheme functions.
8440 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
8441 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
8442 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
8443 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
8446 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
8447 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
8448 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
8451 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
8452 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
8453 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
8456 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
8457 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
8458 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
8459 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
8460 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
8461 display the result as a prompt.
8462 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
8464 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
8465 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
8466 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
8469 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
8470 procedure of zero arguments.
8472 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
8473 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
8474 argument is bound in the current module.
8476 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
8477 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
8478 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
8479 public bindings into the current module.
8481 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
8482 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
8484 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
8485 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
8487 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
8488 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
8490 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
8491 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
8493 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
8494 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
8496 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
8497 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
8498 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
8499 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
8500 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
8502 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
8503 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
8504 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
8505 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
8507 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
8510 ** Changes to I/O functions
8512 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
8513 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
8514 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
8516 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
8517 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
8518 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
8520 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
8521 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
8523 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
8524 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
8525 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
8526 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
8528 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
8530 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
8531 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
8533 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
8534 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
8535 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
8536 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
8537 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
8540 'trim omit delimiter from result
8541 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
8542 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
8543 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
8545 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
8547 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
8548 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
8550 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
8551 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
8552 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
8553 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
8554 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
8556 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
8557 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
8558 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
8560 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
8561 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
8562 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
8563 above, and defaults to 'peek.
8565 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
8566 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
8568 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
8569 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
8571 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
8573 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
8574 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
8575 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
8576 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
8577 a delimiting character.
8578 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
8580 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
8581 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
8582 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
8583 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
8584 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
8585 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
8587 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
8588 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
8590 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
8591 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
8592 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
8594 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
8595 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
8596 the array to read and write.
8598 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
8599 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
8602 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
8604 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
8607 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
8608 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
8609 Values for COMMAND are:
8611 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
8612 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
8613 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
8614 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
8615 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
8616 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
8617 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
8618 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
8620 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
8622 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
8623 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
8624 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
8625 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
8626 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
8627 corresponding return set will be the same.
8629 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
8632 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
8633 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
8634 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
8635 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
8636 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
8637 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
8638 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
8639 special file being created.
8641 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
8642 clashing with various SCSH forks.
8644 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
8645 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
8646 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
8647 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
8648 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
8649 and originating address.
8651 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
8652 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
8653 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
8655 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
8658 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
8659 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
8662 (status:exit-val STATUS)
8663 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
8664 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
8665 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
8666 this function returns #f.
8668 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
8669 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
8670 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
8673 (status:term-sig STATUS)
8674 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
8675 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
8678 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
8679 a valid STATUS value.
8681 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
8683 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
8684 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
8686 Component Accessor Setter
8687 ========================= ============ ============
8688 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
8689 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
8690 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
8691 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
8692 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
8693 year tm:year set-tm:year
8694 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
8695 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
8696 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
8697 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
8698 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
8700 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
8701 describing the host system:
8704 ============================================== ================
8705 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
8706 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
8707 release level of the operating system utsname:release
8708 version level of the operating system utsname:version
8709 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
8711 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
8712 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
8713 system's user database:
8716 ====================== =================
8717 user name passwd:name
8718 user password passwd:passwd
8721 real name passwd:gecos
8722 home directory passwd:dir
8723 shell program passwd:shell
8725 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
8726 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
8727 system's group database:
8730 ======================= ============
8731 group name group:name
8732 group password group:passwd
8734 group members group:mem
8736 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
8737 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
8741 ========================= ===============
8742 official name of host hostent:name
8743 alias list hostent:aliases
8744 host address type hostent:addrtype
8745 length of address hostent:length
8746 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
8748 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
8749 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
8753 ========================= ===============
8754 official name of net netent:name
8755 alias list netent:aliases
8756 net number type netent:addrtype
8757 net number netent:net
8759 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
8760 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
8764 ========================= ===============
8765 official protocol name protoent:name
8766 alias list protoent:aliases
8767 protocol number protoent:proto
8769 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
8770 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
8774 ========================= ===============
8775 official service name servent:name
8776 alias list servent:aliases
8777 port number servent:port
8778 protocol to use servent:proto
8780 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
8781 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
8784 ======================================== ===============
8785 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
8786 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
8787 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
8788 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
8790 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
8791 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
8792 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
8794 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
8795 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
8797 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
8798 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
8800 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
8801 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
8803 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
8805 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
8807 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
8808 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
8809 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
8811 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
8812 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
8813 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
8814 return the remaining characters as a string.
8816 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
8817 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
8818 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
8820 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
8822 * Changes to the gh_ interface
8824 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
8827 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
8830 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
8831 and returns the array
8833 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
8834 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
8835 the user to interpret the data both ways.
8837 * Changes to the scm_ interface
8839 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
8840 symbol's value from C code:
8842 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
8843 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
8844 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
8845 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
8847 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
8848 without assigning them a value.
8850 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
8851 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
8852 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
8854 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
8855 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
8856 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
8858 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
8859 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
8861 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
8862 doesn't actually care about that.
8864 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
8865 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
8866 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
8868 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
8869 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
8870 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
8871 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
8872 which we have just created and initialized.
8874 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
8875 should one occur. We call it like this:
8876 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
8878 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
8879 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
8880 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
8881 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
8882 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
8883 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
8886 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
8887 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
8888 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
8889 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
8890 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
8891 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
8892 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
8895 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
8896 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
8897 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
8898 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
8899 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
8902 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
8903 scm_internal_catch, except:
8905 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
8906 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
8907 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
8908 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
8911 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
8912 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
8913 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
8915 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
8916 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
8917 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
8918 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
8921 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
8922 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
8923 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
8925 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
8926 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
8927 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
8928 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
8929 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
8931 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
8932 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
8933 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
8935 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
8936 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
8937 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
8939 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
8940 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
8942 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
8943 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
8944 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
8947 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
8948 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
8949 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
8950 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
8951 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
8952 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
8953 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
8956 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
8957 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
8959 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
8960 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
8961 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
8962 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
8963 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
8966 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
8967 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
8969 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
8970 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
8973 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
8974 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
8976 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
8979 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
8980 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
8981 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
8982 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
8983 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
8984 given the following arguments:
8986 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
8988 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
8990 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
8992 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
8995 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
8996 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
8997 command-line arguments.
8999 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
9000 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
9001 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
9002 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
9003 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
9004 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
9007 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
9010 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
9011 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
9013 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
9014 rearranged slightly. They are now:
9016 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
9017 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
9018 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
9019 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
9021 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
9022 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
9024 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
9025 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
9026 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
9027 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
9029 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
9030 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
9032 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
9033 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
9035 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
9037 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
9038 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
9039 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
9042 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
9043 returns a port instead of an FD object.
9045 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
9046 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
9051 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
9054 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
9056 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
9057 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
9058 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
9059 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
9061 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
9063 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
9065 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
9066 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
9067 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
9068 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
9069 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
9070 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
9071 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
9072 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
9073 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
9074 for more information.
9076 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
9077 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
9079 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
9080 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
9081 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
9082 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
9083 following two lines at the top of the file:
9085 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
9088 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
9089 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
9090 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
9092 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
9094 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
9096 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
9099 (display (car args))
9100 (if (pair? (cdr args))
9102 (loop (cdr args)))))
9105 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
9106 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
9107 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
9108 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
9109 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
9110 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
9114 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
9117 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
9120 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
9122 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
9123 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
9124 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
9125 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
9126 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
9129 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
9130 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
9131 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
9132 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
9133 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
9136 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
9139 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
9140 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
9141 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
9144 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
9145 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
9146 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
9148 to see a backtrace, and
9149 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
9150 to see them by default.
9154 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
9156 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
9158 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
9159 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
9162 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
9163 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
9164 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
9165 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
9168 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
9169 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
9170 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
9171 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
9172 functions which inspired them.
9174 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
9175 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
9179 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
9181 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
9183 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
9184 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
9187 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
9188 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
9189 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
9191 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
9192 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
9193 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
9194 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
9195 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
9197 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
9199 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
9200 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
9201 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
9204 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
9207 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
9209 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
9210 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
9211 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
9212 above should serve their purposes.
9214 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
9215 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
9216 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
9217 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
9219 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
9222 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
9223 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
9224 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
9225 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
9227 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
9228 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
9229 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
9230 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
9232 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
9233 for the `read' function.
9236 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
9237 to that of `integer?'.
9239 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
9240 use the R4RS names for these functions.
9242 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
9243 it simply returns the object's property list.
9245 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
9246 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
9247 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
9248 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
9250 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
9252 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
9255 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
9257 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
9258 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
9260 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
9262 void (*main_func) (),
9265 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
9266 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
9267 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
9268 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
9269 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
9271 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
9272 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
9273 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
9274 know which arguments have been processed.
9276 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
9277 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
9278 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
9279 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
9280 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
9282 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
9283 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
9284 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
9285 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
9286 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
9287 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
9288 people from making that mistake.
9290 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
9291 convenient ways to override these when desired.
9293 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
9295 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
9299 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
9302 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
9303 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
9304 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
9305 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
9308 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
9309 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
9310 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
9311 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
9314 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
9315 have been added to the Guile library.
9317 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
9318 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
9319 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
9322 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
9323 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
9324 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
9326 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
9327 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
9328 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
9329 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
9330 argument from the list.
9333 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
9336 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
9337 null-terminated string, and returns it.
9339 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
9340 to a Scheme port object.
9342 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
9343 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
9348 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
9350 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
9351 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
9352 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
9353 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
9354 code as a special datatype.
9356 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
9357 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
9358 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
9359 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
9360 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
9363 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
9364 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
9365 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
9366 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
9367 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
9369 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
9372 Copyright information:
9374 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
9376 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
9377 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
9378 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
9379 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
9381 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
9382 of this document, or of portions of it,
9383 under the above conditions, provided also that they
9384 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
9389 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"