1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes. -*- text -*-
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
7 Changes since the stable branch:
9 * Changes to the standalone interpreter
11 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
13 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
14 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
16 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
18 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
19 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
21 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
23 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
25 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
27 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
30 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
31 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
32 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
34 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
35 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
36 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
37 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
48 ERROR: Numerical overflow
50 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
53 ** We now have uninterned symbols.
55 The new function 'make-symbol' will return a uninterned symbol. This
56 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
57 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
59 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
62 ** pretty-print has more options.
64 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
65 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
66 maximum output width. See its online documentation.
68 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
70 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
71 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
72 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
74 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
76 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
77 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
79 ** Removed: substring-move-left!, substring-move-right!
81 Use `substring-move!' instead.
83 * Changes to the C interface
85 ** The struct scm_cell has been renamed to scm_t_cell
87 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
88 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
89 initializes a new cell (see below).
91 ** New functions for memory management
93 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
94 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
95 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
96 cause aborts in long running programs.
98 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
99 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
101 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_strdup,
102 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_realloc, scm_gc_free,
103 scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
104 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
105 details and for upgrading instructions.
107 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
108 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
109 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
111 ** New function: scm_str2string
113 This function creates a scheme string from a 0-terminated C string. The input
116 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
118 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
119 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
120 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
121 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
122 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
124 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
125 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
126 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
128 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, QT_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
129 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
131 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
133 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old macros
134 had problems because with them allocation and initialization was separated and
135 the GC could sometimes observe half initialized cells. Only careful coding by
136 the user of SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
138 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
140 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
143 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
145 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
147 ** Removed from scm_root_state: def_inp, def_outp, def_errp, together
148 with corresponding macros scm_def_inp, scm_def_outp and scm_def_errp.
149 These were undocumented and unused copies of the standard ports at the
150 time that Guile was initialised. Normally the current ports should be
151 used instead, obtained from scm_current_input_port () etc. If an
152 application needs to retain earlier ports, it should save them in a
153 gc-protected location.
155 ** Removed definitions: scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify,
156 s_t_ify, scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
157 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, scm_tc16_allocated,
158 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY, SCM_IM_0_COND,
159 SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED, scm_debug_newcell,
160 scm_debug_newcell2, scm_substring_move_left_x, scm_substring_move_right_x,
161 long_long, ulong_long, scm_sizet, SCM_WNA, SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC,
162 SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL,
163 SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL,
164 SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, moddata, registered_mods,
165 scm_register_module_xxx, scm_registered_modules,
166 scm_clear_registered_modules, scm_wta, *top-level-lookup-closure*,
167 scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
168 scm_eval2, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR, SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR,
169 SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_GC8MARKP, SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK,
170 SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, scm_remember, scm_protect_object,
171 scm_unprotect_object, root_module_lookup_closure, scm_sym_app,
172 scm_sym_modules, module_prefix, make_modules_in_var,
173 beautify_user_module_x_var, try_module_autoload_var, scm_module_full_name,
174 scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module, scm_ensure_user_module,
175 scm_load_scheme_module, scm_port, scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_port_rw_active,
176 scm_close_all_ports_except, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_i_rstate,
177 SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_STRING_UCHARS, SCM_STRING_CHARS,
178 scm_read_only_string_p, scm_makstr, scm_makfromstr,
179 scm_make_shared_substring, scm_tc7_substring, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP,
180 SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP, scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
181 sym_huh, scm_variable_set_name_hint, scm_builtin_variable, SCM_VARVCELL,
182 SCM_UDVARIABLEP, SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_internal_with_fluids,
183 scm_make_gsubr, scm_make_gsubr_with_generic, scm_create_hook, list*,
184 SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4, SCM_LIST5,
185 SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9, scm_listify, scm_sloppy_memq,
186 scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member, scm_end_of_file_key,
187 scm_read_and_eval_x, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
188 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
189 scm_subr_entry, SCM_SUBR_DOC, scm_make_subr_opt, scm_make_subr,
190 scm_make_subr_with_generic, setjmp_type, setjmp_type,
191 scm_call_catching_errors, scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe,
192 scm_strprint_obj, scm_read_0str, scm_eval_0str, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
193 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
194 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
195 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR, scm_strhash,
196 scm_sym2vcell, scm_sym2ovcell_soft, scm_sym2ovcell,
197 scm_intern_obarray_soft, scm_intern_obarray, scm_intern, scm_intern0,
198 scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0, scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup,
199 scm_symbol_value0, scm_string_to_obarray_symbol, scm_intern_symbol,
200 scm_unintern_symbol, scm_symbol_binding, scm_symbol_interned_p,
201 scm_symbol_bound_p, scm_symbol_set_x, scm_gentemp,
202 scm_init_symbols_deprecated, s_vector_set_length_x, scm_vector_set_length_x,
203 scm_contregs, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_OPDIRP,
204 scm_fport, scm_option, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL,
205 SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT, scm_srcprops, scm_srcprops_chunk,
206 scm_info_frame, scm_stack, scm_array, scm_array_dim, SCM_ARRAY_CONTIGUOUS,
207 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA,
208 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY,
209 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
210 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
211 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int,
212 scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int,
213 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell,
214 SCM_ECONSP, SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
215 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable
217 Changes since Guile 1.4:
219 * Changes to the distribution
221 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
223 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
225 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
226 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
227 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
228 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
229 indicate major changes in Guile.
231 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
232 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
233 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
234 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
236 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
237 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
238 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
239 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
240 micro version number.
242 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
244 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
246 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
247 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
249 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
251 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
252 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
253 See INSTALL and README for more information.
255 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
257 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
258 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
259 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
262 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
264 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
267 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
269 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
270 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
272 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
274 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
275 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
278 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
280 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
283 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
286 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
288 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
290 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
291 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
292 open-output-string, get-output-string.
294 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
296 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
298 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
301 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
303 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
305 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
307 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
308 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
309 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
311 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
313 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
315 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
316 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
325 See README there for more info.
327 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
328 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
331 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
333 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
335 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
337 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
338 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
339 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
341 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
343 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
344 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
345 to be named `and-let*', of course.
347 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
348 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
350 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
355 (oop goops active-slot)
356 (oop goops composite-slot)
358 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
359 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
360 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
362 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
364 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
365 in the default environment:
367 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
368 %read-line write-line
370 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
371 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
373 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
375 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
378 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
379 can be used for similar functionality.
381 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
383 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
384 it defines two procedures:
386 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
388 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
389 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
390 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
393 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
395 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
396 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
397 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
400 ** New module (ice-9 match)
402 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
403 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
405 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
407 for complete documentation.
409 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
411 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
412 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
413 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
414 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
416 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
417 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
421 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
422 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
423 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
426 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
429 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
430 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
432 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
433 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
436 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
439 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
441 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
443 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
445 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
447 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
448 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
449 Scheme programs easier.
451 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
452 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
453 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
454 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
455 `cond-expand' when using this option.
458 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
459 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
461 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
464 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
466 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
467 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
468 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
471 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
473 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
475 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
476 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
477 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
478 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
479 was also ASCII, for example.
481 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
483 tag - no replacement.
484 fseek - replaced by seek.
485 list* - replaced by cons*.
487 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
491 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
492 (define m (make-safe-module))
493 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
494 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
495 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
497 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
499 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
500 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
501 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
503 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
505 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
506 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
507 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
508 from the issues related to the module system.
510 *** New function: load-extension
512 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
514 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
516 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
517 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
518 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
520 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
522 This function registers a initialization function for use by
523 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
524 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
525 support dynamic linking).
527 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
529 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
530 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
531 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
532 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
535 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
536 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
537 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
538 library and initialize it explicitely.
540 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
541 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
543 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
545 (define-module (foo bar))
547 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
549 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
551 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
552 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
554 (scheme-report-environment 5)
556 (interaction-environment)
562 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
564 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
565 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
566 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
567 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
569 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
570 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
571 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
572 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
573 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
574 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
575 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
576 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
577 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
578 one eval to the next.
580 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
581 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
582 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
583 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
584 subforms are at the top-level as well.
586 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
587 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
588 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
589 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
590 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
591 used in a lexical environment.
593 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
594 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
595 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
596 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
597 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
598 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
600 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
602 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
603 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
604 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
605 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
606 new facilities: selection and renaming.
608 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
609 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
610 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
612 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
613 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
615 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
616 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
617 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
620 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
622 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
623 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
624 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
625 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
628 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
629 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
630 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
631 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
634 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
635 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
637 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
638 ;; and all four by upcasing.
639 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
640 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
641 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
643 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
646 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
647 :renamer upcase-symbol))
649 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
650 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
651 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
653 See manual for more info.
655 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
657 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
658 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
659 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
661 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
663 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
664 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
665 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
667 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
668 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
669 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
670 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
672 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
674 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
675 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
677 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
678 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
679 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
680 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
681 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
684 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
685 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
686 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
687 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
688 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
689 successful and #f if it wasn't.
691 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
692 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
693 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
694 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
695 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
697 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
698 objects are usually permanent.
700 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
701 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
703 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
705 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
706 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
709 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
713 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
718 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
720 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
721 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
722 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
723 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
725 ** New function `make-object-property'
727 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
728 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
732 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
733 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
737 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
738 source properties eventually.
740 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
742 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
743 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
744 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
746 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
747 will be removed in the next release.
749 ** New define-module option: pure
751 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
756 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
759 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
761 Export names NAME1 ...
763 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
764 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
770 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
773 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
778 ** New function: object->string OBJ
780 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
782 ** New function: port? X
784 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
785 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
787 ** New function: file-port?
789 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
791 ** New function: port-for-each proc
793 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
794 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
795 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
796 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
797 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
799 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
801 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
802 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
803 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
804 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
805 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
808 ** New function: close-fdes fd
810 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
811 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
812 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
813 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
816 ** New function: crypt password salt
818 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
821 ** New function: chroot path
823 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
825 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
827 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
830 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
832 Get or set the priority of the running process.
834 ** New function: getpass prompt
836 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
839 ** New function: flock file operation
841 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
843 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
845 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
848 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
850 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
851 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
852 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
853 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
854 of the temporary file.
856 ** New function: open-input-string string
858 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
859 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
860 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
862 ** New function: open-output-string
864 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
865 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
867 ** New function: get-output-string
869 Return the contents of an output string port.
871 ** New function: identity
875 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
876 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
878 ** New function: inet-pton family address
880 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
881 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
882 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
885 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
886 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
888 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
890 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
891 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
892 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
895 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
896 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
897 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
901 Use `identity' instead.
907 ** Deprecated: return-it
911 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
913 Use `string-length' instead.
917 Use `logior' instead.
919 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
921 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
922 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
923 port-for-each is more flexible.
925 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
926 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
927 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
929 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
931 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
933 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
935 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
937 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
939 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
940 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
942 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
943 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
945 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
946 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
948 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
950 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
951 Removed function: builtin-bindings
953 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
954 Use module system operations for all variables.
956 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
958 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
961 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
963 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
964 The following bugs have been fixed:
966 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
967 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
970 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
971 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
972 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
974 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
975 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
977 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
978 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
981 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
982 The expansion used to be like so:
984 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
986 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
988 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
990 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
991 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
993 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
995 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
996 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
997 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
1001 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
1002 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
1004 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
1009 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
1010 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
1012 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
1013 and `d', other keywords allowed.
1014 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
1016 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
1019 * Changes to the C interface
1021 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
1023 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
1024 with "_t". What a concept.
1026 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
1028 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
1030 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
1034 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
1035 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
1037 *** C Functions removed
1039 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
1040 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
1041 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
1042 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
1043 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
1044 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
1045 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
1047 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
1049 Use scm_mem2string instead.
1051 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
1053 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
1055 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
1056 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
1058 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
1060 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
1063 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
1065 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
1067 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
1069 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments.
1073 scm_call_1 (proc, arg1);
1075 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
1077 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list
1082 scm_apply_1 (proc, arg1, args);
1084 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
1086 Create a list of the given number of elements.
1088 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
1090 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
1091 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
1093 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
1095 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
1097 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
1098 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
1099 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
1101 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1103 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
1105 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
1106 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
1107 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
1110 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1112 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
1114 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
1115 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
1117 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
1119 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
1120 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
1121 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
1122 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
1124 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
1125 scm_primitive_property_ref
1126 scm_primitive_property_set_x
1127 scm_primitive_property_del_x
1129 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
1130 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
1132 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
1134 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
1135 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
1136 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
1137 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
1139 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
1141 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
1142 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
1143 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
1144 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
1145 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
1146 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
1147 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
1149 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
1150 scm_remember_upto_here
1152 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
1154 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
1156 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
1157 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
1159 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
1161 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
1163 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
1165 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
1167 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
1169 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
1170 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
1171 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
1172 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
1173 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
1174 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
1176 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
1178 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1180 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
1181 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1182 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
1184 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
1186 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
1187 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1188 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
1190 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
1192 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
1193 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
1196 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
1199 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
1200 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
1203 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1205 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
1207 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
1209 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1211 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
1213 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
1215 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
1216 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
1217 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
1218 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
1219 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
1220 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
1221 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
1222 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
1223 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
1224 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
1225 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
1226 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
1227 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
1228 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
1229 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
1231 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
1232 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
1233 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
1234 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
1235 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
1236 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
1237 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
1238 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
1239 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1240 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
1241 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
1242 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
1243 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
1244 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
1245 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
1246 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1247 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1248 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
1249 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
1250 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
1251 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
1252 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
1253 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
1254 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
1255 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
1256 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
1257 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
1258 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
1259 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
1261 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
1263 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
1265 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
1266 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
1268 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
1270 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
1272 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
1274 Use scm_string_hash instead.
1276 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
1278 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
1280 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
1282 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
1284 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
1287 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
1288 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
1290 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
1292 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
1294 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
1296 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
1298 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
1300 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
1302 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
1304 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
1307 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
1309 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
1311 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
1313 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
1314 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
1316 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
1317 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
1319 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
1321 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
1322 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
1323 scm_module_define, scm_define.
1325 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
1327 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
1329 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
1330 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
1332 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
1333 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
1334 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
1335 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
1337 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
1338 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
1339 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
1341 Use the new ones from above instead.
1343 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
1345 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
1346 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
1347 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
1349 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
1350 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
1352 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
1353 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
1356 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
1357 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
1359 Use the new functions instead.
1361 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
1364 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
1366 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
1368 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
1371 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
1373 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
1376 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
1378 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
1381 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
1382 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
1383 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
1385 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
1387 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
1388 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
1390 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
1391 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
1392 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
1393 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
1396 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
1398 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
1399 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
1400 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
1401 inexact for an exact.
1403 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
1404 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
1405 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
1408 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
1409 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
1410 accept an inexact argument.
1412 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
1413 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
1415 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
1418 ** New number validation macros:
1419 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
1423 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
1425 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
1426 scm_unprotect_object.
1428 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
1430 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
1432 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
1435 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
1437 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
1441 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
1443 * Changes to the distribution
1445 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
1447 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
1448 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
1449 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
1450 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
1451 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
1452 obtain these programs.
1453 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
1454 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
1456 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
1457 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
1458 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
1459 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
1460 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
1462 However, this approach means that minor differences between
1463 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
1464 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
1465 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
1469 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
1472 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
1473 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
1474 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
1475 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
1477 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
1479 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
1481 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
1482 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
1484 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
1485 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
1487 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
1488 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
1490 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
1491 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
1492 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
1493 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
1495 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
1497 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
1501 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
1502 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
1504 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
1506 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
1507 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
1509 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
1510 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
1511 number of objects of that kind.
1513 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
1515 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
1516 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
1517 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
1518 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
1519 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
1521 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
1523 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
1525 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
1527 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
1530 ** New module (ice-9 time)
1532 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
1534 ** New module (ice-9 history)
1536 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
1538 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1540 ** New command line option --debug
1542 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
1544 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
1546 ** New help facility
1548 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
1549 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
1550 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
1551 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
1552 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
1553 (help) gives this text
1555 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
1556 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
1558 Examples: (help help)
1560 (help "output-string")
1562 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
1564 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
1566 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
1567 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
1570 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
1571 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
1572 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
1575 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
1576 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
1577 use absolute filenames when possible.
1579 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
1580 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
1581 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
1584 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
1586 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
1587 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
1588 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
1589 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
1591 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
1593 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
1595 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
1596 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
1597 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
1599 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
1600 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
1601 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
1603 (read-enable 'positions)
1604 (debug-enable 'debug)
1606 ** Backtraces in scripts
1608 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
1612 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
1614 at the top of the script.
1616 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
1617 The second enables backtraces.)
1619 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
1621 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
1622 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
1623 substantially faster than before.
1625 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
1626 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
1628 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
1629 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
1631 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
1633 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
1634 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
1635 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
1637 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
1638 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
1639 when this hook is run in the future.
1641 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
1642 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
1644 ** Improvements to garbage collector
1646 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
1647 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
1650 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
1651 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
1652 more and more memory for certain programs.)
1654 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
1655 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
1657 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
1658 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
1660 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
1661 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
1662 in order not to need further allocation.)
1664 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
1667 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
1668 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
1669 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
1670 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
1672 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
1674 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
1677 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
1679 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
1682 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
1683 GC in percent of total heap size
1686 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
1687 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
1689 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
1691 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
1692 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
1694 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
1696 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
1697 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
1699 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
1701 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
1702 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
1706 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
1707 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
1709 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
1711 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1713 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
1715 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
1717 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
1719 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
1720 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
1722 (simple-format port message . args)
1723 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
1724 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
1725 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
1726 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
1727 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
1728 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
1729 Does not add a trailing newline."
1731 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
1733 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
1734 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
1736 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
1737 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
1739 ** Deprecated: list*
1741 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
1743 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
1745 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
1746 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
1748 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
1749 is returned as result.
1751 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
1753 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
1755 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
1757 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
1758 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
1761 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
1763 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
1765 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
1766 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
1768 * Changes to the gh_ interface
1770 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
1772 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
1774 * Changes to the scm_ interface
1776 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
1778 Thanks to Greg Badros!
1780 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
1782 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
1783 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
1784 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
1786 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
1789 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
1791 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
1792 the readability of argument checking.
1794 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
1796 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
1798 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
1800 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
1801 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
1802 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
1803 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
1804 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
1805 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
1806 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
1808 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
1810 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
1812 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
1813 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
1815 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
1817 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
1818 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
1821 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
1823 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
1824 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
1825 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
1827 Further, it is recommended not to rely on implementation details for guile's
1828 current implementation of bignums. It is planned to replace this
1829 implementation with gmp in the future.
1831 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
1832 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
1833 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
1835 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
1836 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
1837 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
1838 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
1839 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
1840 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
1841 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
1843 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
1844 scm_end_input (object);
1845 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
1846 ptob->flush (object);
1848 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
1849 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
1852 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
1854 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
1856 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
1857 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
1858 removed in a future version.
1860 ** The format of error message strings has changed
1862 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
1863 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
1864 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
1865 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
1867 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
1868 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
1870 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
1873 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
1875 in your configure.in.
1877 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
1882 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
1888 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
1890 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
1894 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
1895 (define make-message string-append)
1897 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
1899 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
1903 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
1908 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
1912 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
1914 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
1915 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
1917 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
1919 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
1920 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
1921 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
1922 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
1923 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
1924 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
1926 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
1927 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
1928 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
1930 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
1931 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
1932 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
1935 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
1936 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
1937 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
1938 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
1939 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
1941 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
1942 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
1943 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
1944 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
1945 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
1946 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
1947 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
1949 Destructors are not yet implemented.
1951 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
1952 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
1953 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
1955 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
1956 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
1957 KEY in the calling thread.
1959 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
1960 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
1961 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
1962 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
1963 associated with the key.
1965 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
1967 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
1968 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
1970 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
1972 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
1973 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
1974 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
1976 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
1978 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
1979 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
1981 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
1983 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
1985 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
1986 returned is undefined.
1988 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
1989 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
1990 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
1992 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
1993 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
1994 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
1996 ** New C level GC hooks
1998 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
2000 scm_before_gc_c_hook
2003 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
2004 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
2005 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
2007 scm_before_mark_c_hook
2008 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
2009 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
2011 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
2012 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
2015 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
2017 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
2018 allocation parameters
2020 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
2021 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
2022 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
2026 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
2027 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
2028 scm_default_max_segment_size
2030 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
2032 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
2033 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
2035 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
2037 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
2038 object and count on the object being protected until
2039 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
2041 The functions also have better time complexity.
2043 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
2044 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
2045 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
2046 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
2047 are no longer needed.
2049 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
2051 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
2052 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
2053 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
2054 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
2056 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
2058 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
2060 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
2062 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
2063 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
2064 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
2065 until this issue has been settled.
2067 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
2069 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
2071 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
2074 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
2076 * Changes to system call interfaces:
2078 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
2079 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
2080 descriptors were checked.
2082 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
2083 atomically written to a pipe.
2085 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
2086 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
2087 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
2088 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
2089 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
2090 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
2091 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
2094 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
2095 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
2096 is changed without calling tzset.
2098 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
2100 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
2101 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
2102 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
2104 (define write-network-long
2105 (lambda (value port)
2106 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2107 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
2108 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
2110 (define read-network-long
2112 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2113 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
2114 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
2116 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
2117 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
2119 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
2120 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
2121 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
2122 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
2124 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
2125 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
2126 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
2127 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
2131 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
2133 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2137 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
2138 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
2139 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
2145 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
2146 for a description of available commands.
2148 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
2149 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
2150 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
2152 (debug-enable 'backwards)
2154 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
2155 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
2157 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
2159 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
2161 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
2162 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
2163 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
2164 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
2165 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
2166 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
2169 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
2171 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
2172 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
2173 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
2174 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
2176 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
2177 the file and should not be affected by this change.
2179 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
2181 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2183 ** Readline support has changed again.
2185 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
2186 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
2187 to activate readline is now
2189 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
2192 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
2194 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
2195 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
2196 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
2199 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
2200 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
2201 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
2204 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
2205 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
2206 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
2207 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
2208 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
2209 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
2211 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
2212 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
2214 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
2216 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
2217 object it receives is the same string passed to
2218 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
2219 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
2220 string, not the suffix.
2222 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
2223 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
2224 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
2226 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
2228 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
2229 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
2230 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
2231 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
2234 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2236 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
2238 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
2239 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
2240 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
2241 appear from left to right.
2243 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
2246 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
2248 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
2249 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
2251 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2255 *** New function: hook? OBJ
2257 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
2259 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
2261 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
2262 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
2263 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
2265 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
2267 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
2269 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
2271 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
2274 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
2276 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
2277 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
2278 mentioning it here anyway.
2280 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
2282 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
2283 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
2284 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
2285 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
2288 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
2290 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
2292 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
2294 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
2295 otherwise return #f.
2297 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
2299 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
2300 returned by `opendir'.
2302 ** New function: using-readline?
2304 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
2306 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
2308 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
2309 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
2311 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2313 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
2315 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
2316 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
2317 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
2319 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
2321 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
2322 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
2324 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
2326 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
2327 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
2328 documentation slots are not yet used.
2330 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
2332 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
2333 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
2334 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
2339 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
2340 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
2341 (string-append x y))
2343 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
2344 can also be used for concatenating strings.
2346 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
2347 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
2348 be made in a clean way.]
2350 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
2352 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
2354 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
2356 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
2357 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
2359 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2361 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
2363 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
2365 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
2367 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
2368 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
2369 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
2370 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
2373 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2375 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
2377 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
2379 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
2381 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
2382 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
2384 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2386 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
2388 Evaluates the body of a special form.
2390 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
2392 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
2393 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
2394 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
2395 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
2396 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
2397 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
2399 This should not make any difference for most users.
2401 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
2403 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
2404 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
2406 *** New functions for applying generic functions
2408 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
2409 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
2410 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
2411 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
2412 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
2414 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
2416 It is now replaced by:
2418 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
2420 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
2421 binds a variable named NAME to it.
2423 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
2425 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
2426 This might change when we get the new module system.
2428 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
2432 Changes since Guile 1.3:
2434 * Changes to mailing lists
2436 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
2438 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
2441 * Changes to the distribution
2443 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
2445 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
2446 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
2447 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
2448 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
2449 you explicitly specify it.
2451 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
2452 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
2453 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
2454 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
2455 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
2458 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
2459 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
2460 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
2461 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
2463 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
2464 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
2465 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
2468 You can activate the readline support by issuing
2470 (use-modules (readline-activator))
2473 from your ".guile" file, for example.
2475 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2477 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
2478 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
2479 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
2480 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
2482 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
2483 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
2486 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2488 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
2489 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
2490 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
2491 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
2492 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
2493 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
2494 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
2495 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
2507 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
2508 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
2509 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
2510 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
2511 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
2516 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
2517 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
2525 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
2530 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
2531 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
2534 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
2535 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
2536 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
2537 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
2539 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
2541 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
2543 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
2544 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
2546 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
2548 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
2550 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
2551 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
2553 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
2556 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
2558 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
2560 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
2562 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
2564 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
2566 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
2568 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
2569 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
2570 when the hook was created.
2572 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
2573 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
2574 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
2575 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
2576 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
2577 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
2578 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
2579 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
2580 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
2582 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
2583 the dlopen family of functions.
2585 ** New function `provided?'
2587 - Function: provided? FEATURE
2588 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
2589 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
2590 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
2592 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
2594 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
2595 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
2596 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
2597 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
2600 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
2601 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
2602 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
2603 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
2605 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
2606 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
2607 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
2610 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
2611 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
2612 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
2613 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
2614 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
2615 but with the flag set.
2617 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
2619 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
2620 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
2622 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
2623 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
2624 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
2625 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
2626 available Scheme format implementations.
2628 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
2629 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
2630 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
2631 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
2632 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
2633 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
2634 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
2635 output is to the current error port if available by the
2636 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
2639 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
2640 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
2641 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
2642 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
2643 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
2644 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
2645 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
2646 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
2648 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
2649 be executed at a time.
2652 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
2654 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
2655 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
2656 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
2658 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
2659 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
2660 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
2661 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
2662 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
2663 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
2664 general form of a directive is:
2666 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
2668 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
2670 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
2672 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
2673 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
2674 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
2677 Any (print as `display' does).
2681 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
2685 S-expression (print as `write' does).
2689 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
2695 print number sign always.
2698 print comma separated.
2700 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
2706 print number sign always.
2709 print comma separated.
2711 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
2717 print number sign always.
2720 print comma separated.
2722 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
2728 print number sign always.
2731 print comma separated.
2733 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
2738 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
2742 print a number as a Roman numeral.
2745 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
2748 print a number as an ordinal English number.
2751 print a number as a cardinal English number.
2756 prints `y' and `ies'.
2759 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
2762 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
2767 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
2771 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
2774 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
2775 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
2777 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2780 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
2781 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
2783 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2786 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
2788 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
2790 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2793 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
2795 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
2797 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2800 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
2803 The sign appears before the padding.
2811 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
2813 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
2818 print N page separators.
2828 newline is ignored, white space left.
2831 newline is left, white space ignored.
2836 relative tabulation.
2842 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
2844 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
2847 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
2849 converts by `string-capitalize'.
2852 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
2855 converts by `string-upcase'.
2858 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
2860 jumps N arguments forward.
2863 jumps 1 argument backward.
2866 jumps N arguments backward.
2869 jumps to the 0th argument.
2872 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
2874 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
2875 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
2877 take argument from N.
2880 true test conditional.
2883 if-else-then conditional.
2889 default clause follows.
2892 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
2894 at most N iterations.
2897 args from next arg (a list of lists).
2900 args from the rest of arguments.
2903 args from the rest args (lists).
2914 aborts if N <= M <= K
2916 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
2919 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
2922 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
2928 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
2930 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
2932 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
2933 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
2934 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
2935 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
2936 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
2937 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
2941 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
2945 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
2951 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
2954 Print a `#\space' character
2956 print N `#\space' characters.
2959 Print a `#\tab' character
2961 print N `#\tab' characters.
2964 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
2965 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
2966 must be a positive decimal number.
2969 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
2970 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
2971 be processed by `read'.
2974 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
2975 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
2976 be processed by `read'.
2979 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
2982 prints format version.
2985 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
2986 and format it accordingly.
2988 *** Configuration Variables
2990 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
2991 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
2992 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
2993 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
2996 format:symbol-case-conv
2997 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
2998 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
2999 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
3000 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
3001 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
3003 format:iobj-case-conv
3004 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
3005 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
3008 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
3011 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
3017 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
3018 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
3019 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
3020 `format' padding style.
3023 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
3024 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
3025 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
3026 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
3030 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
3031 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
3032 directive parameters or modifiers)).
3035 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
3036 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
3037 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
3038 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
3039 parameters or modifiers)).
3042 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
3044 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
3046 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
3047 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
3049 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
3050 string-downcase! functions.
3052 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
3053 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
3055 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
3058 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
3061 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
3062 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
3064 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
3066 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
3067 the symbol had be read by `read'.
3069 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
3070 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
3071 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
3072 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
3073 would if STRING were input.
3075 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
3077 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
3078 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
3079 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
3080 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
3083 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
3085 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
3086 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
3089 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
3091 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
3092 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
3094 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
3095 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
3097 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
3098 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
3099 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
3100 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
3102 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
3103 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
3105 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
3106 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
3107 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
3109 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
3110 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
3112 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
3113 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
3114 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
3115 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
3116 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
3118 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
3119 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
3120 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
3121 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
3122 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
3123 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
3125 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
3126 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
3127 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
3130 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
3131 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
3132 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
3133 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
3134 the following grammar:
3135 ((apples (single-char #\a))
3136 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
3137 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
3138 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
3139 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
3140 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
3141 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
3142 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
3143 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
3144 last option in its combination)
3146 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
3147 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
3148 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
3149 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
3151 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
3152 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
3153 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
3155 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3156 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3157 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
3159 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
3160 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
3161 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
3162 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
3163 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
3164 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
3165 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
3166 ordinary argument strings.
3168 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
3169 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
3170 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
3171 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
3173 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
3174 as a list, associated with the empty list.
3176 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
3177 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
3178 - a required option is omitted
3179 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
3180 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
3181 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
3182 - an option predicate fails
3187 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
3190 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
3191 (verbose (required? #f)
3194 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
3195 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
3196 (predicate ,string?))))
3198 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
3199 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3201 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3202 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
3203 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
3204 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
3207 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
3209 It will be removed in a few releases.
3211 ** New syntax: lambda*
3212 ** New syntax: define*
3213 ** New syntax: define*-public
3214 ** New syntax: defmacro*
3215 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
3216 Guile now supports optional arguments.
3218 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
3219 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
3220 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
3221 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
3222 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
3224 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
3225 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
3226 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
3228 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
3230 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
3231 and examples for `lambda*':
3234 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
3236 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
3237 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
3238 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
3239 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
3240 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
3241 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
3242 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
3243 can be checked with the bound? macro.
3245 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
3247 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
3248 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
3249 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
3250 are given as keywords are bound to values.
3252 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
3253 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
3254 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
3255 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
3256 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
3257 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
3258 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
3259 and until the procedure is called.
3261 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
3263 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
3264 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
3265 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
3266 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
3267 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
3268 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
3269 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
3270 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
3271 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
3272 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
3274 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
3275 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
3276 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
3277 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
3280 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
3282 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
3283 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
3284 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
3285 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
3287 ** New syntax: and-let*
3288 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
3290 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
3291 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
3292 (<variable> <expression>)
3295 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
3296 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
3297 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
3300 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
3301 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
3302 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
3303 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
3304 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
3305 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
3306 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
3308 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
3309 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
3310 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
3311 shadow earlier bindings.
3313 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
3315 ** New sorting functions
3317 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
3318 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
3319 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
3320 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
3322 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
3323 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
3326 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
3327 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
3328 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
3330 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
3331 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
3332 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
3333 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
3335 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
3336 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
3337 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
3338 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
3339 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
3342 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
3343 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
3344 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
3345 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
3346 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
3347 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
3349 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
3350 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
3351 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
3353 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
3354 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
3355 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
3358 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
3359 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
3360 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
3362 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
3363 Added for compatibility with scsh.
3365 ** New built-in random number support
3367 *** New function: random N [STATE]
3368 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
3369 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
3370 returned have a uniform distribution.
3372 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
3373 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
3374 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
3375 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
3376 effect of the `random' operation.
3378 *** New variable: *random-state*
3379 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
3380 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
3381 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
3382 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
3383 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
3386 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
3387 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
3388 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
3389 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
3390 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
3392 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
3393 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
3394 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
3395 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
3396 initialized using SEED.
3398 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
3399 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
3400 range between 0 and 1.
3402 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
3403 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
3404 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
3405 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
3406 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
3407 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
3408 or a uniform vector of doubles.
3410 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
3411 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
3412 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
3413 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
3414 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
3415 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
3417 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
3418 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
3419 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
3420 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
3422 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
3423 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
3424 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
3425 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
3427 *** New function: random:exp STATE
3428 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
3429 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
3431 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
3433 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
3436 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
3437 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
3440 ** New function: make-guardian
3441 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
3442 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
3443 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
3444 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
3445 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
3447 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
3448 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
3449 one object if at all.
3451 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
3452 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
3453 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
3455 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
3456 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
3457 read again in last-in first-out order.
3459 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
3460 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
3462 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
3464 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
3465 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
3466 file position is used.
3468 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
3469 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
3470 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
3472 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
3473 redefined using seek.
3475 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
3476 size is not supplied.
3478 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
3479 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
3481 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
3482 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
3484 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
3486 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
3487 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
3488 and returns the contents as a single string.
3490 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
3491 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
3492 lists in serial order.
3494 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
3495 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
3496 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
3498 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
3499 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
3500 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
3501 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
3503 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
3504 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
3505 and #f if an error occured.
3507 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
3509 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
3510 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
3511 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
3512 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
3514 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
3516 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
3519 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
3521 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
3524 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3528 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
3529 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
3531 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
3532 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
3536 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3538 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
3540 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3541 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3543 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3545 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
3546 might change when we get the new module system.
3548 ** The smob interface
3550 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
3551 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
3553 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
3555 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
3559 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
3560 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
3561 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
3562 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
3563 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
3564 will be freed by the default free function.
3566 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
3567 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
3568 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3569 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3571 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
3572 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
3573 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3574 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3576 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
3578 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
3579 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
3583 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
3584 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3585 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3587 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
3588 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
3589 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3590 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3592 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
3593 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
3594 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
3596 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
3597 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
3598 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
3599 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
3601 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
3602 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
3603 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
3605 *** scm_newptob has been removed
3609 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
3611 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
3612 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
3613 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
3615 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
3616 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
3617 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
3619 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
3620 a string port's buffer.
3622 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
3623 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
3624 function pointers which together define the current random number
3625 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
3626 number library functions.
3628 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
3631 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
3632 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
3635 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
3636 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
3638 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
3639 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
3641 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
3642 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
3645 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
3646 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
3647 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
3648 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
3650 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
3651 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
3652 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
3653 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
3654 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
3655 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
3656 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
3658 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
3659 by libguile and the application.
3661 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
3662 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
3663 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
3664 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
3666 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
3667 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
3669 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
3670 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
3671 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
3673 ** Random number library functions
3674 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
3675 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
3676 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
3678 The default random state is stored in:
3680 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
3681 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
3682 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
3687 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
3689 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
3690 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
3691 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
3692 isn't a random state.
3694 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
3695 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
3697 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
3698 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
3699 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
3700 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
3702 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3703 Return 32 random bits.
3705 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3706 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
3708 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3709 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
3711 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3712 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
3714 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
3715 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
3717 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
3718 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
3719 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
3723 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
3725 * Changes to the distribution
3727 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
3728 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
3729 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
3732 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
3733 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
3734 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
3736 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
3737 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
3738 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
3739 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
3742 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
3743 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
3744 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
3746 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3748 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
3750 *** Function: batch-mode?
3752 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
3755 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
3757 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
3758 case has not been implemented.
3760 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
3761 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
3762 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
3765 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
3766 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
3768 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
3770 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
3772 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
3774 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
3775 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
3778 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
3779 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
3780 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
3781 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
3784 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
3786 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
3787 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
3788 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
3789 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
3790 find those libraries.
3792 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
3793 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
3796 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
3798 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
3799 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
3800 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
3801 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
3803 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
3804 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
3805 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
3809 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
3811 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
3812 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
3813 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
3816 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
3817 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
3818 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
3819 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
3821 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
3822 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
3825 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
3826 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
3827 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
3828 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
3829 compiler where to find the libraries.
3831 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
3832 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
3833 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
3835 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
3836 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
3837 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
3838 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
3839 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
3843 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3845 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
3846 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
3847 internationalization support.
3849 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
3850 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
3851 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
3852 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
3853 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
3855 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
3856 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
3857 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
3858 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
3859 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
3861 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
3862 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
3863 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
3864 any GNU mirror site.
3866 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
3868 ** New function: add-history STRING
3869 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
3870 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
3871 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
3873 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
3875 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
3876 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
3877 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
3880 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
3881 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
3882 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
3884 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
3886 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
3889 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
3890 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
3893 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
3894 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
3895 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
3896 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
3897 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
3898 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
3900 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
3901 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
3902 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
3903 of the form mentioned above.
3905 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
3906 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
3907 returned in the special `rest' list.
3909 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
3910 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
3912 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
3914 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
3916 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
3918 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
3919 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
3920 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
3921 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
3922 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
3923 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
3924 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
3925 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
3928 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
3930 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
3932 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
3933 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
3936 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
3937 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
3938 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
3942 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
3943 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
3944 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
3945 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
3946 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
3947 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
3948 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
3949 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
3952 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
3954 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
3955 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
3956 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
3958 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
3960 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
3961 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
3963 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
3964 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
3965 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
3967 Why do we have this function?
3968 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
3969 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
3970 primitive, and display it differently, and
3971 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
3972 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
3975 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
3976 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
3979 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
3980 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
3981 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
3982 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
3984 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
3985 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
3988 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
3989 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
3991 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
3993 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
3994 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
3995 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
3996 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
3997 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
3998 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
3999 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
4002 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
4004 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
4005 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
4007 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
4008 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
4009 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
4010 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
4011 properly continue the print chain.
4013 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
4014 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
4015 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
4016 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
4017 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
4018 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
4019 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
4020 print-state, it is simply ignored.
4022 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
4023 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
4024 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
4025 safest to not check for these pairs.
4027 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
4028 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
4029 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
4030 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
4032 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
4034 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
4035 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
4037 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
4039 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
4041 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
4042 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
4043 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
4045 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
4046 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
4047 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
4049 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
4050 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
4051 the following functions and macros:
4053 Function: make-fluid
4055 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
4056 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
4057 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
4058 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
4059 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
4061 Function: fluid? OBJ
4063 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
4065 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
4066 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
4068 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
4069 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
4071 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
4073 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
4074 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
4075 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
4076 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
4077 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
4078 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
4079 modified by `with-fluids*'.
4081 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
4083 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
4084 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
4085 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
4086 should evaluate to a fluid.
4088 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
4090 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
4091 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
4092 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
4093 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
4094 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
4096 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
4099 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
4101 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
4103 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
4105 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
4108 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
4109 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
4110 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
4111 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
4112 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
4115 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
4116 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
4117 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
4119 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
4120 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
4121 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
4123 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
4124 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
4125 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4126 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
4128 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
4129 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
4130 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4131 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
4133 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
4134 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
4135 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
4136 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
4138 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
4139 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
4140 their revealed counts set to zero.
4142 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4143 Returns an integer file descriptor.
4145 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4146 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
4148 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4149 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
4151 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4152 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
4153 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
4155 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
4156 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
4157 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
4159 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
4160 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
4161 default environment inherited by child processes.
4163 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
4164 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
4165 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
4167 The return value is unspecified.
4169 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
4170 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
4171 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
4172 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
4173 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
4175 The return value is unspecified.
4177 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
4178 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
4186 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
4187 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
4190 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
4193 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
4194 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
4195 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
4197 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
4198 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
4199 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
4200 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
4203 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
4204 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
4206 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
4207 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
4208 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
4209 the `environ' procedure.
4211 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
4212 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
4215 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
4216 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
4218 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
4219 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
4220 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
4221 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
4223 *** procedure: times
4224 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
4225 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
4226 return a selected component:
4229 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
4233 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
4236 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
4240 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
4241 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
4245 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
4246 terminated child processes.
4248 ** Removed: list-length
4249 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
4250 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
4252 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
4254 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
4256 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
4258 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
4259 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
4260 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
4261 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
4263 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
4264 extra complexity it introduces.
4266 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
4267 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
4269 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
4270 variable to any non-empty value.
4272 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
4273 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
4275 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4277 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
4278 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
4280 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
4282 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
4283 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
4285 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
4287 ** vector handling routines
4289 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
4290 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
4291 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
4292 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
4293 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
4295 ** pair and list routines
4297 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
4300 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
4302 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
4305 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4307 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
4309 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
4310 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
4311 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
4312 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
4313 site-specific initialization code.
4315 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
4316 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
4317 initialization processes.
4319 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
4320 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
4321 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
4322 initialized properly.
4324 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
4325 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
4326 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
4328 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
4329 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
4330 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
4331 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
4332 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
4334 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
4336 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
4337 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
4338 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
4339 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
4340 objects the smob refers to get marked.
4342 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
4343 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
4344 which look like this:
4347 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
4349 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
4350 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
4353 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
4354 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
4357 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
4359 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
4360 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
4361 you will need to change your functions slightly.
4363 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
4364 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
4365 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
4366 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
4367 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
4369 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
4370 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
4372 int (*free) (SCM port);
4373 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
4374 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
4375 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
4379 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
4380 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
4381 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
4383 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
4386 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
4387 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
4388 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
4390 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
4391 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
4392 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
4395 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
4399 struct timeval *timeout);
4401 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
4402 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
4403 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
4404 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
4405 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
4406 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
4408 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
4409 scm_catch_body_t body,
4411 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
4414 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
4415 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
4416 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
4417 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
4418 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
4419 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
4421 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
4423 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
4426 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
4427 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
4428 spawning threads from application C code.
4430 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
4431 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
4432 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
4433 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
4434 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
4435 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
4437 ** Removed functions:
4439 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
4440 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
4442 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
4444 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
4445 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
4447 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
4449 ** mbstrings are now removed
4451 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
4452 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
4454 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
4456 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
4457 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
4458 their new names and arguments:
4460 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
4461 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
4462 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
4463 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
4466 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
4468 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
4470 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
4473 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
4475 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
4476 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
4477 pass a #f arg to catch.
4479 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
4481 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
4482 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
4485 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
4486 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
4487 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
4488 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
4489 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
4490 reclaim its storage.
4492 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
4493 worrying that some other function you call will call
4494 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
4495 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
4496 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
4497 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
4500 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
4502 * Changes to the distribution
4504 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
4505 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
4508 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
4509 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
4511 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4512 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4514 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
4516 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
4517 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
4518 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
4520 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4522 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
4523 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
4524 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
4525 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
4526 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
4527 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
4529 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
4530 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
4531 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
4534 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
4535 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
4536 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
4537 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
4539 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
4540 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
4541 libraries to your link command:
4543 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
4544 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
4545 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
4546 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
4548 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
4549 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
4550 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
4552 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4554 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
4555 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
4558 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
4560 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
4561 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
4562 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
4563 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
4564 searched is system dependent.
4566 (dynamic-object? VAL)
4568 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
4570 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
4572 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
4573 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
4575 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
4577 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
4578 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
4579 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
4580 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
4581 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
4584 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
4586 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
4587 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
4588 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
4589 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
4590 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
4592 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
4594 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
4595 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
4597 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
4599 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
4600 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
4601 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
4604 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
4606 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
4607 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
4608 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
4609 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
4611 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
4612 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
4614 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
4616 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
4617 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
4619 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
4621 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
4622 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
4630 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
4632 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
4633 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
4634 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
4635 a more informative way.
4637 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
4638 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
4639 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
4640 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
4641 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
4642 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
4644 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
4645 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
4648 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
4649 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
4650 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
4653 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
4654 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
4655 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
4656 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
4657 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
4658 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
4660 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
4661 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
4662 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
4663 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
4666 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
4667 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
4668 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
4669 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
4670 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
4671 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
4673 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
4674 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
4675 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
4676 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
4677 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
4679 *** regexp functions
4681 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
4682 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
4683 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
4685 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
4686 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
4687 with SCSH regular expressions.
4689 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
4690 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
4691 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
4692 position of STR at which to begin matching.
4694 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
4695 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
4696 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
4697 `string-match' returns `#f'.
4699 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
4700 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
4701 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
4702 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
4703 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
4704 match strings against the compiled regexp.
4706 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
4707 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
4708 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
4709 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
4710 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
4712 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
4714 **** Constant: regexp/extended
4715 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
4716 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
4717 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
4719 **** Constant: regexp/icase
4720 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
4721 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
4723 **** Constant: regexp/newline
4724 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
4726 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
4729 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
4730 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
4731 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
4733 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
4734 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
4735 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
4737 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
4738 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
4739 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
4740 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
4741 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
4744 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
4746 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
4747 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
4748 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
4749 used when different portions of a string are passed to
4750 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
4751 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
4753 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
4754 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
4755 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
4757 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
4758 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
4761 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
4762 and replace them with the contents of another string.
4764 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
4765 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
4766 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
4767 may be one of the following arguments:
4769 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
4771 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
4773 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
4774 the regexp match is written.
4776 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
4777 following the regexp match is written.
4779 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
4780 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
4783 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
4784 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
4785 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
4786 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
4787 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
4788 which should be matched against this regular expression.
4790 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
4793 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
4794 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
4795 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
4796 written out to PORT.
4798 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
4799 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
4800 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
4801 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
4802 will return after processing a single match.
4804 *** Match Structures
4806 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
4807 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
4808 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
4809 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
4810 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
4811 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
4814 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
4815 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
4816 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
4817 information about the original target string that was matched against a
4818 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
4820 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
4821 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
4822 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
4824 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
4825 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
4826 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
4827 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
4828 number N did not match, return `#f'.
4830 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
4831 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
4833 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
4834 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
4836 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
4837 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
4839 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
4840 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
4842 **** Function: match:count MATCH
4843 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
4844 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
4845 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
4847 **** Function: match:string MATCH
4848 Return the original TARGET string.
4850 *** Backslash Escapes
4852 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
4853 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
4854 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
4855 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
4856 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
4857 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
4859 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
4860 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
4861 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
4862 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
4863 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
4864 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
4865 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
4866 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
4868 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
4869 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
4870 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
4871 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
4872 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
4873 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
4874 each match a single backslash in the target string.
4876 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
4877 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
4878 return the resulting string.
4880 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
4881 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
4882 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
4883 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
4884 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
4885 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
4886 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
4887 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
4888 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
4889 translated to the single character `*'.
4891 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
4892 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
4893 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
4894 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
4895 consecutive backslashes:
4897 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
4899 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
4900 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
4901 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
4903 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
4904 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
4905 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
4906 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
4907 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
4908 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
4910 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
4912 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
4913 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
4914 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
4915 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
4916 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
4917 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
4918 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
4919 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
4920 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
4921 cumbersome escape syntax.
4923 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4925 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4927 * Changes to system call interfaces:
4929 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
4932 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
4934 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
4936 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
4939 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
4940 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
4941 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
4942 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
4943 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
4945 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
4946 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
4947 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
4948 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
4949 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
4950 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
4951 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
4954 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
4955 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
4956 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
4959 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
4960 `force-output' on every port open for output.
4962 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
4963 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
4964 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
4965 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
4966 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
4967 installed, you can say:
4969 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
4972 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4974 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
4975 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
4976 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
4977 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
4978 new dynamic roots and threads.
4981 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
4983 * Changes to the distribution.
4985 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
4987 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
4988 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
4989 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
4990 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
4991 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
4992 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
4993 programming language. These are packaged together because the
4994 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
4996 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
4999 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
5000 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
5005 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5007 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
5008 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
5010 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
5011 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
5012 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
5013 the (command-line) function.
5014 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
5015 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
5016 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
5018 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
5019 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
5020 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
5021 command line arguments
5022 -ds do -s script at this point
5023 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
5024 -h, --help display this help and exit
5025 -v, --version display version information and exit
5026 \ read arguments from following script lines
5028 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
5029 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
5031 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5034 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5038 (main (command-line))
5040 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
5042 ekko a speckled gecko
5044 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
5045 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
5046 following list of command-line arguments:
5048 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
5050 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
5051 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
5052 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
5053 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
5054 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5056 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
5058 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
5060 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
5061 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
5064 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
5065 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
5066 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
5067 SCSH) for circumventing them.
5069 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
5070 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
5071 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
5072 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
5074 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
5078 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5082 If the user invokes this script as follows:
5084 ekko a speckled gecko
5086 Unix expands this into
5088 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
5090 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
5091 read from the second line of the script, producing:
5093 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
5095 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
5096 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5098 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
5099 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
5100 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
5101 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
5102 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
5103 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
5104 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
5105 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
5106 it only terminates the argument list.)
5107 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
5108 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
5109 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
5110 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
5111 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
5112 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
5113 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
5114 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
5116 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5118 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
5119 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
5120 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
5121 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
5122 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
5124 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
5125 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
5126 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
5128 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
5130 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
5131 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
5132 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
5133 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
5136 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
5137 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5138 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5140 * Changes to Scheme functions
5142 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
5143 and disabled by default.
5145 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
5146 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
5147 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
5148 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
5150 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
5152 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
5154 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
5155 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
5157 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
5158 (read-set! keywords #f)
5160 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
5161 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
5162 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
5165 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
5166 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
5167 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
5170 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
5171 support for Scheme functions.
5173 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5174 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
5175 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
5176 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
5179 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5180 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
5181 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
5184 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
5185 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
5186 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
5189 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
5190 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
5191 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
5192 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
5193 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
5194 display the result as a prompt.
5195 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
5197 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
5198 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
5199 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
5202 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
5203 procedure of zero arguments.
5205 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
5206 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
5207 argument is bound in the current module.
5209 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
5210 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
5211 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
5212 public bindings into the current module.
5214 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
5215 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
5217 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
5218 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
5220 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
5221 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
5223 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
5224 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
5226 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
5227 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
5229 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
5230 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
5231 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
5232 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
5233 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
5235 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
5236 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
5237 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
5238 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
5240 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
5243 ** Changes to I/O functions
5245 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
5246 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
5247 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
5249 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
5250 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
5251 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
5253 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
5254 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
5256 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
5257 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
5258 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
5259 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
5261 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
5263 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
5264 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
5266 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
5267 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
5268 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
5269 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
5270 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
5273 'trim omit delimiter from result
5274 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
5275 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
5276 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
5278 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
5280 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
5281 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
5283 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
5284 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
5285 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
5286 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
5287 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
5289 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
5290 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
5291 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
5293 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
5294 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
5295 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
5296 above, and defaults to 'peek.
5298 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
5299 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
5301 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
5302 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
5304 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
5306 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
5307 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
5308 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
5309 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
5310 a delimiting character.
5311 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
5313 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
5314 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
5315 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
5316 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
5317 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
5318 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
5320 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
5321 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
5323 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
5324 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
5325 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
5327 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
5328 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
5329 the array to read and write.
5331 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
5332 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
5335 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
5337 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
5340 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
5341 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
5342 Values for COMMAND are:
5344 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
5345 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
5346 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
5347 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
5348 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
5349 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
5350 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
5351 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
5353 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
5355 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
5356 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
5357 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
5358 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
5359 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
5360 corresponding return set will be the same.
5362 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
5365 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
5366 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
5367 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
5368 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
5369 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
5370 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
5371 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
5372 special file being created.
5374 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
5375 clashing with various SCSH forks.
5377 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
5378 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
5379 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
5380 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
5381 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
5382 and originating address.
5384 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
5385 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
5386 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
5388 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
5391 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
5392 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
5395 (status:exit-val STATUS)
5396 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
5397 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
5398 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
5399 this function returns #f.
5401 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
5402 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
5403 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
5406 (status:term-sig STATUS)
5407 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
5408 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
5411 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
5412 a valid STATUS value.
5414 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
5416 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
5417 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
5419 Component Accessor Setter
5420 ========================= ============ ============
5421 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
5422 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
5423 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
5424 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
5425 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
5426 year tm:year set-tm:year
5427 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
5428 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
5429 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
5430 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
5431 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
5433 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
5434 describing the host system:
5437 ============================================== ================
5438 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
5439 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
5440 release level of the operating system utsname:release
5441 version level of the operating system utsname:version
5442 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
5444 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
5445 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
5446 system's user database:
5449 ====================== =================
5450 user name passwd:name
5451 user password passwd:passwd
5454 real name passwd:gecos
5455 home directory passwd:dir
5456 shell program passwd:shell
5458 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
5459 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
5460 system's group database:
5463 ======================= ============
5464 group name group:name
5465 group password group:passwd
5467 group members group:mem
5469 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
5470 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
5474 ========================= ===============
5475 official name of host hostent:name
5476 alias list hostent:aliases
5477 host address type hostent:addrtype
5478 length of address hostent:length
5479 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
5481 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
5482 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
5486 ========================= ===============
5487 official name of net netent:name
5488 alias list netent:aliases
5489 net number type netent:addrtype
5490 net number netent:net
5492 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
5493 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
5497 ========================= ===============
5498 official protocol name protoent:name
5499 alias list protoent:aliases
5500 protocol number protoent:proto
5502 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
5503 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
5507 ========================= ===============
5508 official service name servent:name
5509 alias list servent:aliases
5510 port number servent:port
5511 protocol to use servent:proto
5513 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
5514 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
5517 ======================================== ===============
5518 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
5519 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
5520 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
5521 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
5523 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
5524 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
5525 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
5527 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
5528 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
5530 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
5531 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
5533 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
5534 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
5536 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
5538 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
5540 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
5541 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
5542 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
5544 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
5545 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
5546 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
5547 return the remaining characters as a string.
5549 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
5550 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
5551 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
5553 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
5555 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5557 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
5560 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
5563 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
5564 and returns the array
5566 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
5567 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
5568 the user to interpret the data both ways.
5570 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5572 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
5573 symbol's value from C code:
5575 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
5576 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
5577 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
5578 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
5580 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
5581 without assigning them a value.
5583 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
5584 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
5585 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
5587 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
5588 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
5589 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
5591 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
5592 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
5594 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
5595 doesn't actually care about that.
5597 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
5598 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
5599 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
5601 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
5602 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
5603 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
5604 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
5605 which we have just created and initialized.
5607 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
5608 should one occur. We call it like this:
5609 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
5611 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
5612 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
5613 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
5614 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
5615 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
5616 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
5619 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
5620 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
5621 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
5622 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
5623 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
5624 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
5625 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
5628 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
5629 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
5630 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
5631 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
5632 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
5635 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
5636 scm_internal_catch, except:
5638 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
5639 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
5640 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
5641 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
5644 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
5645 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
5646 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
5648 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
5649 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
5650 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
5651 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
5654 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
5655 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
5656 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
5658 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
5659 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
5660 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
5661 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
5662 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
5664 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
5665 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
5666 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
5668 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
5669 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
5670 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
5672 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
5673 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
5675 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
5676 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
5677 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
5680 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
5681 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
5682 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
5683 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
5684 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
5685 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
5686 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
5689 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
5690 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
5692 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
5693 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
5694 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
5695 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
5696 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
5699 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
5700 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
5702 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
5703 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
5706 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
5707 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
5709 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5712 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
5713 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
5714 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
5715 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
5716 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
5717 given the following arguments:
5719 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
5721 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
5723 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
5725 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5728 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
5729 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
5730 command-line arguments.
5732 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
5733 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
5734 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
5735 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
5736 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
5737 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
5740 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5743 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
5744 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
5746 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
5747 rearranged slightly. They are now:
5749 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5750 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
5751 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
5752 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
5754 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5755 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
5757 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5758 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
5759 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
5760 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
5762 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5763 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
5765 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
5766 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
5768 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
5770 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
5771 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
5772 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
5775 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
5776 returns a port instead of an FD object.
5778 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
5779 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
5784 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
5787 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
5789 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
5790 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
5791 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
5792 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
5794 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
5796 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
5798 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
5799 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
5800 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
5801 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
5802 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
5803 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
5804 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
5805 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
5806 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
5807 for more information.
5809 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
5810 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
5812 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
5813 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
5814 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
5815 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
5816 following two lines at the top of the file:
5818 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5821 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
5822 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
5823 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
5825 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
5827 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5829 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
5832 (display (car args))
5833 (if (pair? (cdr args))
5835 (loop (cdr args)))))
5838 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
5839 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
5840 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
5841 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
5842 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
5843 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
5847 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
5850 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
5853 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
5855 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
5856 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
5857 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
5858 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
5859 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
5862 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
5863 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
5864 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
5865 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
5866 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
5869 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
5872 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
5873 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
5874 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
5877 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
5878 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
5879 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
5881 to see a backtrace, and
5882 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
5883 to see them by default.
5887 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
5889 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
5891 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
5892 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
5895 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
5896 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
5897 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
5898 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
5901 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
5902 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
5903 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
5904 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
5905 functions which inspired them.
5907 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
5908 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
5912 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
5914 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
5916 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
5917 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
5920 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
5921 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
5922 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
5924 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
5925 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
5926 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
5927 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
5928 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
5930 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
5932 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
5933 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
5934 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
5937 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
5940 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
5942 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
5943 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
5944 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
5945 above should serve their purposes.
5947 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
5948 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
5949 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
5950 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
5952 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
5955 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
5956 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
5957 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
5958 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
5960 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
5961 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
5962 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
5963 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
5965 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
5966 for the `read' function.
5969 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
5970 to that of `integer?'.
5972 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
5973 use the R4RS names for these functions.
5975 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
5976 it simply returns the object's property list.
5978 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
5979 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
5980 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
5981 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
5983 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
5985 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
5988 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
5990 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
5991 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
5993 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
5995 void (*main_func) (),
5998 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
5999 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
6000 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
6001 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
6002 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
6004 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
6005 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
6006 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
6007 know which arguments have been processed.
6009 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
6010 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
6011 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
6012 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
6013 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
6015 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
6016 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
6017 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
6018 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
6019 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
6020 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
6021 people from making that mistake.
6023 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
6024 convenient ways to override these when desired.
6026 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
6028 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
6032 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
6035 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
6036 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
6037 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
6038 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
6041 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
6042 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
6043 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
6044 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
6047 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
6048 have been added to the Guile library.
6050 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
6051 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
6052 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
6055 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
6056 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
6057 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
6059 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
6060 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
6061 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
6062 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
6063 argument from the list.
6066 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
6069 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
6070 null-terminated string, and returns it.
6072 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
6073 to a Scheme port object.
6075 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
6076 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
6081 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
6083 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
6084 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
6085 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
6086 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
6087 code as a special datatype.
6089 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
6090 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
6091 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
6092 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
6093 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
6096 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
6097 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
6098 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
6099 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
6100 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
6102 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
6105 Copyright information:
6107 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6109 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
6110 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
6111 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
6112 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
6114 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
6115 of this document, or of portions of it,
6116 under the above conditions, provided also that they
6117 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
6122 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"