1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
8 Note: During the 1.9 series, we will keep an incremental NEWS for the
9 latest prerelease, and a full NEWS corresponding to 1.8 -> 2.0.
11 Changes in 1.9.15 (since the 1.9.14 prerelease):
13 ** Formally deprecate omission of port to `format'
15 It used to be that you could omit passing a port to `format', in some
16 cases. This still works, but has been formally deprecated.
20 Noah Lavine and Kan-Ru Chen noticed and fixed a number of embarrassing
21 bugs in object creation, unicode literals in strings, empty function
22 bodies, non-breaking whitespace, and numeric literals.
24 ** `(web ...)' changes
26 *** `parse-uri', `unparse-uri' now called `string->uri', `uri->string'
28 *** `uri-decode' takes `#:encoding' keyword argument, not `#:charset'
30 *** HTTP header representation change
32 Guile properly garbage-collects symbols, so there's no need to read some
33 headers as symbols and some as strings: all header names are symbols
34 now. The same goes for many key-value constructs in headers. Guile
35 parses the challenge/authentication headers now, as well. Header decl
36 objects are no longer exposed to the user.
38 *** Request and response bodies are always bytevectors
40 Reading bodies as latin-1 strings was a cute hack, but not general, so
41 Guile's only official fetch-me-the-body procedures return bytevectors
44 ** New procedures: scm_{to,from}_{utf8,latin1}_symbol{n,}
45 ** New procedures: scm_{to,from}_{utf8,utf32,latin1}_symbol{n,}
47 These new procedures convert to and from string representations in
50 Basically, continue to use locale encoding for user input, user output,
51 or interacting with the C library. Use latin1 for ASCII, and for
52 literals in source code. Use utf8 for interaction with modern libraries
53 which deal in UTF-8. Use utf32 for interaction with utf32-using
54 libraries. Otherwise use scm_to_stringn or scm_from_stringn with a
57 Also, scm_from_latin1_symbol is quite a bit faster now.
59 ** Documentation updates
61 The GOOPS manual saw a lot of work, as well as documentation for the
64 ** Guile uses iconv directly for reading from and writing to ports.
66 In addition to providing faster Unicode I/O (e.g., `display',
67 `read-char'), this change improves error reporting.
69 For instance, the `encoding-error' exception conveys information about
70 the port and character that could not be encoded. Likewise, the new
71 `decoding-error' exception conveys information about the port from which
72 data failed to be decoded, and leaves the port in a known position.
74 ** Source files default to UTF-8.
76 If source files do not specify their encoding via a `coding:' block,
77 the default encoding is UTF-8, instead of being taken from the current
82 Thanks to Mark Harig for many suggestions regarding the manual page,
83 which is getting better.
85 ** Interactive Guile installs the current locale.
87 Instead of leaving the user in the "C" locale, running the Guile REPL
88 installs the current locale. [FIXME xref?]
90 ** `recv!', `recvfrom!', `send', `sendto' now deal in bytevectors
92 These socket procedures now take bytevectors as arguments, instead of
93 strings. There is some deprecated string support, however.
95 ** New foreign API: `define-wrapped-pointer-type', `pointer?'
97 See "Foreign Types", for more.
99 ** Changes and bugfixes in numerics code
101 *** Added two new sets of fast quotient and remainder operators
103 Added two new sets of fast quotient and remainder operator pairs with
104 different semantics than the R5RS operators. They support not only
105 integers, but all reals, including exact rationals and inexact
106 floating point numbers.
108 These procedures accept two real numbers N and D, where the divisor D
109 must be non-zero. `euclidean-quotient' returns the integer Q and
110 `euclidean-remainder' returns the real R such that N = Q*D + R and
111 0 <= R < |D|. `euclidean/' returns both Q and R, and is more
112 efficient than computing each separately. Note that when D > 0,
113 `euclidean-quotient' returns floor(N/D), and when D < 0 it returns
116 `centered-quotient', `centered-remainder', and `centered/' are similar
117 except that the range of remainders is -abs(D/2) <= R < abs(D/2), and
118 `centered-quotient' rounds N/D to the nearest integer.
120 Note that these operators are equivalent to the R6RS integer division
121 operators `div', `mod', `div-and-mod', `div0', `mod0', and
124 *** `eqv?' and `equal?' now compare numbers equivalently
126 scm_equal_p `equal?' now behaves equivalently to scm_eqv_p `eqv?' for
127 numeric values, per R5RS. Previously, equal? worked differently,
128 e.g. `(equal? 0.0 -0.0)' returned #t but `(eqv? 0.0 -0.0)' returned #f,
129 and `(equal? +nan.0 +nan.0)' returned #f but `(eqv? +nan.0 +nan.0)'
132 *** `(equal? +nan.0 +nan.0)' now returns #t
134 Previously, `(equal? +nan.0 +nan.0)' returned #f, although
135 `(let ((x +nan.0)) (equal? x x))' and `(eqv? +nan.0 +nan.0)'
136 both returned #t. R5RS requires that `equal?' behave like
137 `eqv?' when comparing numbers.
139 *** Change in handling products `*' involving exact 0
141 scm_product `*' now handles exact 0 differently. A product containing
142 an exact 0 now returns an exact 0 if and only if the other arguments
143 are all exact. An inexact zero is returned if and only if the other
144 arguments are all finite but not all exact. If an infinite or NaN
145 value is present, a NaN value is returned. Previously, any product
146 containing an exact 0 yielded an exact 0, regardless of the other
149 *** `expt' and `integer-expt' changes when the base is 0
151 While `(expt 0 0)' is still 1, and `(expt 0 N)' for N > 0 is still
152 zero, `(expt 0 N)' for N < 0 is now a NaN value, and likewise for
153 integer-expt. This is more correct, and conforming to R6RS, but seems
154 to be incompatible with R5RS, which would return 0 for all non-zero
157 *** `expt' and `integer-expt' are more generic, less strict
159 When raising to an exact non-negative integer exponent, `expt' and
160 `integer-expt' are now able to exponentiate any object that can be
161 multiplied using `*'. They can also raise an object to an exact
162 negative integer power if its reciprocal can be taken using `/'.
163 In order to allow this, the type of the first argument is no longer
164 checked when raising to an exact integer power. If the exponent is 0
165 or 1, the first parameter is not manipulated at all, and need not
166 even support multiplication.
168 *** Infinities are no longer integers, nor rationals
170 scm_integer_p `integer?' and scm_rational_p `rational?' now return #f
171 for infinities, per R6RS. Previously they returned #t for real
172 infinities. The real infinities and NaNs are still considered real by
173 scm_real `real?' however, per R6RS.
175 *** NaNs are no longer rationals
177 scm_rational_p `rational?' now returns #f for NaN values, per R6RS.
178 Previously it returned #t for real NaN values. They are still
179 considered real by scm_real `real?' however, per R6RS.
181 *** `inf?' and `nan?' now throw exceptions for non-reals
183 The domain of `inf?' and `nan?' is the real numbers. Guile now signals
184 an error when a non-real number or non-number is passed to these
185 procedures. (Note that NaNs _are_ considered numbers by scheme, despite
188 *** `rationalize' bugfixes and changes
190 Fixed bugs in scm_rationalize `rationalize'. Previously, it returned
191 exact integers unmodified, although that was incorrect if the epsilon
192 was at least 1 or inexact, e.g. (rationalize 4 1) should return 3 per
193 R5RS and R6RS, but previously it returned 4. It also now handles
194 cases involving infinities and NaNs properly, per R6RS.
196 *** Trigonometric functions now return exact numbers in some cases
198 scm_sin `sin', scm_cos `cos', scm_tan `tan', scm_asin `asin', scm_acos
199 `acos', scm_atan `atan', scm_sinh `sinh', scm_cosh `cosh', scm_tanh
200 `tanh', scm_sys_asinh `asinh', scm_sys_acosh `acosh', and
201 scm_sys_atanh `atanh' now return exact results in some cases.
203 *** New procedure: `finite?'
205 Add scm_finite_p `finite?' from R6RS to guile core, which returns #t
206 if and only if its argument is neither infinite nor a NaN. Note that
207 this is not the same as (not (inf? x)) or (not (infinite? x)), since
208 NaNs are neither finite nor infinite.
210 *** R6RS base library changes
212 **** `div', `mod', `div-and-mod', `div0', `mod0', `div0-and-mod0'
214 Efficient versions of these R6RS division operators are now supported.
215 See the NEWS entry entitled `Added two new sets of fast quotient and
216 remainder operators' for more information.
218 **** `infinite?' changes
220 `infinite?' and `finite?' now throw exceptions for non-numbers. (Note
221 that NaNs _are_ considered numbers by scheme, despite their name).
223 **** `real-valued?', `rational-valued?' and `integer-valued?' changes
225 These predicates are now implemented in accordance with R6RS.
227 ** R6RS textual I/O procedures raise R6RS error conditions
229 R6RS procedures `get-char', `put-string', etc. now raise the correct
230 R6RS error coding, i.e., `&i/o-decoding-error' or `&i/o-encoding-error'.
232 ** New reader option: `hungry-eol-escapes'
234 Guile's string syntax is more compatible with R6RS when the
235 `hungry-eol-escapes' option is enabled. See "String Syntax" in the
236 manual, for more information.
238 ** And of course, the usual collection of bugfixes
240 Interested users should see the ChangeLog for more information.
244 Changes in 1.9.x (since the 1.8.x series):
246 * New modules (see the manual for details)
248 ** `(srfi srfi-18)', more sophisticated multithreading support
249 ** `(srfi srfi-27)', sources of random bits
250 ** `(srfi srfi-38)', External Representation for Data With Shared Structure
251 ** `(srfi srfi-42)', eager comprehensions
252 ** `(srfi srfi-45)', primitives for expressing iterative lazy algorithms
253 ** `(srfi srfi-67)', compare procedures
254 ** `(ice-9 i18n)', internationalization support
255 ** `(ice-9 futures)', fine-grain parallelism
256 ** `(rnrs bytevectors)', the R6RS bytevector API
257 ** `(rnrs io ports)', a subset of the R6RS I/O port API
258 ** `(system xref)', a cross-referencing facility (FIXME undocumented)
259 ** `(ice-9 vlist)', lists with constant-time random access; hash lists
260 ** `(system foreign)', foreign function interface
261 ** `(sxml match)', a pattern matcher for SXML
262 ** `(srfi srfi-9 gnu)', extensions to the SRFI-9 record library
263 ** `(system vm coverage)', a line-by-line code coverage library
264 ** `(web uri)', URI data type, parser, and unparser
265 ** `(web http)', HTTP header parsers and unparsers
266 ** `(web request)', HTTP request data type, reader, and writer
267 ** `(web response)', HTTP response data type, reader, and writer
268 ** `(web server)', Generic HTTP server
269 ** `(ice-9 poll)', a poll wrapper
270 ** `(web server http)', HTTP-over-TCP web server implementation
272 ** Replaced `(ice-9 match)' with Alex Shinn's compatible, hygienic matcher.
274 Guile's copy of Andrew K. Wright's `match' library has been replaced by
275 a compatible hygienic implementation by Alex Shinn. It is now
276 documented, see "Pattern Matching" in the manual.
278 Compared to Andrew K. Wright's `match', the new `match' lacks
279 `match-define', `match:error-control', `match:set-error-control',
280 `match:error', `match:set-error', and all structure-related procedures.
282 ** Imported statprof, SSAX, and texinfo modules from Guile-Lib
284 The statprof statistical profiler, the SSAX XML toolkit, and the texinfo
285 toolkit from Guile-Lib have been imported into Guile proper. See
286 "Standard Library" in the manual for more details.
288 ** Integration of lalr-scm, a parser generator
290 Guile has included Dominique Boucher's fine `lalr-scm' parser generator
291 as `(system base lalr)'. See "LALR(1) Parsing" in the manual, for more
294 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
296 ** Guile now can compile Scheme to bytecode for a custom virtual machine.
298 Compiled code loads much faster than Scheme source code, and runs around
299 3 or 4 times as fast, generating much less garbage in the process.
301 ** Evaluating Scheme code does not use the C stack.
303 Besides when compiling Guile itself, Guile no longer uses a recursive C
304 function as an evaluator. This obviates the need to check the C stack
305 pointer for overflow. Continuations still capture the C stack, however.
307 ** New environment variables: GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH,
308 GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH
310 GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is for compiled files what GUILE_LOAD_PATH is
311 for source files. It is a different path, however, because compiled
312 files are architecture-specific. GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is like
315 ** New read-eval-print loop (REPL) implementation
317 Running Guile with no arguments drops the user into the new REPL. See
318 "Using Guile Interactively" in the manual, for more information.
320 ** Remove old Emacs interface
322 Guile had an unused `--emacs' command line argument that was supposed to
323 help when running Guile inside Emacs. This option has been removed, and
324 the helper functions `named-module-use!' and `load-emacs-interface' have
327 ** Add `(system repl server)' module and `--listen' command-line argument
329 The `(system repl server)' module exposes procedures to listen on
330 sockets for connections, and serve REPLs to those clients. The --listen
331 command-line argument allows any Guile program to thus be remotely
334 See "Invoking Guile" for more information on `--listen'.
336 ** Command line additions
338 The guile binary now supports a new switch "-x", which can be used to
339 extend the list of filename extensions tried when loading files
342 ** New reader options: `square-brackets' and `r6rs-hex-escapes'
344 The reader supports a new option (changeable via `read-options'),
345 `square-brackets', which instructs it to interpret square brackets as
346 parentheses. This option is on by default.
348 When the new `r6rs-hex-escapes' reader option is enabled, the reader
349 will recognize string escape sequences as defined in R6RS. R6RS string
350 escape sequences are incompatible with Guile's existing escapes, though,
351 so this option is off by default.
353 ** Function profiling and tracing at the REPL
355 The `,profile FORM' REPL meta-command can now be used to statistically
356 profile execution of a form, to see which functions are taking the most
357 time. See `,help profile' for more information.
359 Similarly, `,trace FORM' traces all function applications that occur
360 during the execution of `FORM'. See `,help trace' for more information.
362 ** Recursive debugging REPL on error
364 When Guile sees an error at the REPL, instead of saving the stack, Guile
365 will directly enter a recursive REPL in the dynamic context of the
366 error. See "Error Handling" in the manual, for more information.
368 A recursive REPL is the same as any other REPL, except that it
369 has been augmented with debugging information, so that one can inspect
370 the context of the error. The debugger has been integrated with the REPL
371 via a set of debugging meta-commands.
373 For example, one may access a backtrace with `,backtrace' (or
374 `,bt'). See "Interactive Debugging" in the manual, for more
377 ** New `guile-tools' commands: `compile', `disassemble'
379 Pass the `--help' command-line option to these commands for more
382 ** Guile now adds its install prefix to the LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH
384 Users may now install Guile to nonstandard prefixes and just run
385 `/path/to/bin/guile', instead of also having to set LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH to
386 include `/path/to/lib'.
388 ** Guile's Emacs integration is now more keyboard-friendly
390 Backtraces may now be disclosed with the keyboard in addition to the
393 ** Load path change: search in version-specific paths before site paths
395 When looking for a module, Guile now searches first in Guile's
396 version-specific path (the library path), *then* in the site dir. This
397 allows Guile's copy of SSAX to override any Guile-Lib copy the user has
398 installed. Also it should cut the number of `stat' system calls by half,
401 ** Value history in the REPL on by default
403 By default, the REPL will save computed values in variables like `$1',
404 `$2', and the like. There are programmatic and interactive interfaces to
405 control this. See "Value History" in the manual, for more information.
407 ** Readline tab completion for arguments
409 When readline is enabled, tab completion works for arguments too, not
410 just for the operator position.
412 ** Expression-oriented readline history
414 Guile's readline history now tries to operate on expressions instead of
415 input lines. Let us know what you think!
417 ** Interactive Guile follows GNU conventions
419 As recommended by the GPL, Guile now shows a brief copyright and
420 warranty disclaimer on startup, along with pointers to more information.
422 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
424 ** Support for R6RS libraries
426 The `library' and `import' forms from the latest Scheme report have been
427 added to Guile, in such a way that R6RS libraries share a namespace with
428 Guile modules. R6RS modules may import Guile modules, and are available
429 for Guile modules to import via use-modules and all the rest. See "R6RS
430 Libraries" in the manual for more information.
432 ** Implementations of R6RS libraries
434 Guile now has implementations for all of the libraries defined in the
435 R6RS. Thanks to Julian Graham for this excellent hack. See "R6RS
436 Standard Libraries" in the manual for a full list of libraries.
438 ** Partial R6RS compatibility
440 Guile now has enough support for R6RS to run a reasonably large subset
443 Guile is not fully R6RS compatible. Many incompatibilities are simply
444 bugs, though some parts of Guile will remain R6RS-incompatible for the
445 foreseeable future. See "R6RS Incompatibilities" in the manual, for more
448 Please contact bug-guile@gnu.org if you have found an issue not
449 mentioned in that compatibility list.
451 ** New implementation of `primitive-eval'
453 Guile's `primitive-eval' is now implemented in Scheme. Actually there is
454 still a C evaluator, used when building a fresh Guile to interpret the
455 compiler, so we can compile eval.scm. Thereafter all calls to
456 primitive-eval are implemented by VM-compiled code.
458 This allows all of Guile's procedures, be they interpreted or compiled,
459 to execute on the same stack, unifying multiple-value return semantics,
460 providing for proper tail recursion between interpreted and compiled
461 code, and simplifying debugging.
463 As part of this change, the evaluator no longer mutates the internal
464 representation of the code being evaluated in a thread-unsafe manner.
466 There are two negative aspects of this change, however. First, Guile
467 takes a lot longer to compile now. Also, there is less debugging
468 information available for debugging interpreted code. We hope to improve
469 both of these situations.
471 There are many changes to the internal C evalator interface, but all
472 public interfaces should be the same. See the ChangeLog for details. If
473 we have inadvertantly changed an interface that you were using, please
474 contact bug-guile@gnu.org.
476 ** Procedure removed: `the-environment'
478 This procedure was part of the interpreter's execution model, and does
479 not apply to the compiler.
481 ** No more `local-eval'
483 `local-eval' used to exist so that one could evaluate code in the
484 lexical context of a function. Since there is no way to get the lexical
485 environment any more, as that concept has no meaning for the compiler,
486 and a different meaning for the interpreter, we have removed the
489 If you think you need `local-eval', you should probably implement your
490 own metacircular evaluator. It will probably be as fast as Guile's
493 ** Scheme source files will now be compiled automatically.
495 If a compiled .go file corresponding to a .scm file is not found or is
496 not fresh, the .scm file will be compiled on the fly, and the resulting
497 .go file stored away. An advisory note will be printed on the console.
499 Note that this mechanism depends on the timestamp of the .go file being
500 newer than that of the .scm file; if the .scm or .go files are moved
501 after installation, care should be taken to preserve their original
504 Autocompiled files will be stored in the $XDG_CACHE_HOME/guile/ccache
505 directory, where $XDG_CACHE_HOME defaults to ~/.cache. This directory
506 will be created if needed.
508 To inhibit autocompilation, set the GUILE_AUTO_COMPILE environment
509 variable to 0, or pass --no-autocompile on the Guile command line.
511 ** New POSIX procedures: `getrlimit' and `setrlimit'
513 Note however that the interface of these functions is likely to change
514 in the next prerelease.
516 ** New POSIX procedure: `getsid'
518 Scheme binding for the `getsid' C library call.
520 ** New POSIX procedure: `getaddrinfo'
522 Scheme binding for the `getaddrinfo' C library function.
524 ** Multicast socket options
526 Support was added for the IP_MULTICAST_TTL and IP_MULTICAST_IF socket
527 options. See "Network Sockets and Communication" in the manual, for
530 ** New GNU procedures: `setaffinity' and `getaffinity'.
532 See "Processes" in the manual, for more information.
534 ** New procedures: `compose', `negate', and `const'
536 See "Higher-Order Functions" in the manual, for more information.
538 ** New procedure in `(oops goops)': `method-formals'
540 ** New procedures in (ice-9 session): `add-value-help-handler!',
541 `remove-value-help-handler!', `add-name-help-handler!'
542 `remove-name-help-handler!', `procedure-arguments'
544 The value and name help handlers provide some minimal extensibility to
545 the help interface. Guile-lib's `(texinfo reflection)' uses them, for
546 example, to make stexinfo help documentation available. See those
547 procedures' docstrings for more information.
549 `procedure-arguments' describes the arguments that a procedure can take,
550 combining arity and formals. For example:
552 (procedure-arguments resolve-interface)
553 => ((required . (name)) (rest . args))
555 Additionally, `module-commentary' is now publically exported from
558 ** Removed: `procedure->memoizing-macro', `procedure->syntax'
560 These procedures created primitive fexprs for the old evaluator, and are
561 no longer supported. If you feel that you need these functions, you
562 probably need to write your own metacircular evaluator (which will
563 probably be as fast as Guile's, anyway).
565 ** New language: ECMAScript
567 Guile now ships with one other high-level language supported,
568 ECMAScript. The goal is to support all of version 3.1 of the standard,
569 but not all of the libraries are there yet. This support is not yet
570 documented; ask on the mailing list if you are interested.
572 ** New language: Brainfuck
574 Brainfuck is a toy language that closely models Turing machines. Guile's
575 brainfuck compiler is meant to be an example of implementing other
576 languages. See the manual for details, or
577 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck for more information about the
578 Brainfuck language itself.
580 ** New language: Elisp
582 Guile now has an experimental Emacs Lisp compiler and runtime. You can
583 now switch to Elisp at the repl: `,language elisp'. All kudos to Daniel
584 Kraft and Brian Templeton, and all bugs to bug-guile@gnu.org.
586 ** Better documentation infrastructure for macros
588 It is now possible to introspect on the type of a macro, e.g.
589 syntax-rules, identifier-syntax, etc, and extract information about that
590 macro, such as the syntax-rules patterns or the defmacro arguments.
591 `(texinfo reflection)' takes advantage of this to give better macro
594 ** Support for arbitrary procedure metadata
596 Building on its support for docstrings, Guile now supports multiple
597 docstrings, adding them to the tail of a compiled procedure's
598 properties. For example:
604 (procedure-properties foo)
605 => ((name . foo) (documentation . "one") (documentation . "two"))
607 Also, vectors of pairs are now treated as additional metadata entries:
610 #((quz . #f) (docstring . "xyzzy"))
612 (procedure-properties bar)
613 => ((name . bar) (quz . #f) (docstring . "xyzzy"))
615 This allows arbitrary literals to be embedded as metadata in a compiled
618 ** The psyntax expander now knows how to interpret the @ and @@ special
621 ** The psyntax expander is now hygienic with respect to modules.
623 Free variables in a macro are scoped in the module that the macro was
624 defined in, not in the module the macro is used in. For example, code
627 (define-module (foo) #:export (bar))
628 (define (helper x) ...)
630 (syntax-rules () ((_ x) (helper x))))
632 (define-module (baz) #:use-module (foo))
635 It used to be you had to export `helper' from `(foo)' as well.
636 Thankfully, this has been fixed.
638 ** Support for version information in Guile's `module' form
640 Guile modules now have a `#:version' field. See "R6RS Version
641 References", "General Information about Modules", "Using Guile Modules",
642 and "Creating Guile Modules" in the manual for more information.
644 ** Support for renaming bindings on module export
646 Wherever Guile accepts a symbol as an argument to specify a binding to
647 export, it now also accepts a pair of symbols, indicating that a binding
648 should be renamed on export. See "Creating Guile Modules" in the manual
649 for more information.
651 ** New procedure: `module-export-all!'
653 This procedure exports all current and future bindings from a module.
654 Use as `(module-export-all! (current-module))'.
656 ** New procedure `reload-module', and `,reload' REPL command
658 See "Module System Reflection" and "Module Commands" in the manual, for
661 ** `eval-case' has been deprecated, and replaced by `eval-when'.
663 The semantics of `eval-when' are easier to understand. See "Eval When"
664 in the manual, for more information.
666 ** Guile is now more strict about prohibiting definitions in expression
669 Although previous versions of Guile accepted it, the following
670 expression is not valid, in R5RS or R6RS:
672 (if test (define foo 'bar) (define foo 'baz))
674 In this specific case, it would be better to do:
676 (define foo (if test 'bar 'baz))
678 It is certainly possible to circumvent this resriction with e.g.
679 `(module-define! (current-module) 'foo 'baz)'. We would appreciate
680 feedback about this change (a consequence of using psyntax as the
681 default expander), and may choose to revisit this situation before 2.0
682 in response to user feedback.
684 ** Support for `letrec*'
686 Guile now supports `letrec*', a recursive lexical binding operator in
687 which the identifiers are bound in order. See "Local Bindings" in the
688 manual, for more details.
690 ** Internal definitions now expand to `letrec*'
692 Following the R6RS, internal definitions now expand to letrec* instead
693 of letrec. The following program is invalid for R5RS, but valid for
698 (define baz (+ bar 20))
701 ;; R5RS and Guile <= 1.8:
702 (foo) => Unbound variable: bar
703 ;; R6RS and Guile >= 2.0:
706 This change should not affect correct R5RS programs, or programs written
707 in earlier Guile dialects.
709 ** Macro expansion produces structures instead of s-expressions
711 In the olden days, macroexpanding an s-expression would yield another
712 s-expression. Though the lexical variables were renamed, expansions of
713 core forms like `if' and `begin' were still non-hygienic, as they relied
714 on the toplevel definitions of `if' et al being the conventional ones.
716 The solution is to expand to structures instead of s-expressions. There
717 is an `if' structure, a `begin' structure, a `toplevel-ref' structure,
718 etc. The expander already did this for compilation, producing Tree-IL
719 directly; it has been changed now to do so when expanding for the
722 ** Defmacros must now produce valid Scheme expressions.
724 It used to be that defmacros could unquote in Scheme values, as a way of
725 supporting partial evaluation, and avoiding some hygiene issues. For
728 (define (helper x) ...)
729 (define-macro (foo bar)
732 Assuming this macro is in the `(baz)' module, the direct translation of
735 (define (helper x) ...)
736 (define-macro (foo bar)
737 `((@@ (baz) helper) ,bar))
739 Of course, one could just use a hygienic macro instead:
743 ((_ bar) (helper bar))))
745 ** Guile's psyntax now supports docstrings and internal definitions.
747 The following Scheme is not strictly legal:
754 However its intent is fairly clear. Guile interprets "bar" to be the
755 docstring of `foo', and the definition of `baz' is still in definition
758 ** Support for settable identifier syntax
760 Following the R6RS, "variable transformers" are settable
761 identifier-syntax. See "Identifier macros" in the manual, for more
764 ** syntax-case treats `_' as a placeholder
766 Following R6RS, a `_' in a syntax-rules or syntax-case pattern matches
767 anything, and binds no pattern variables. Unlike the R6RS, Guile also
768 permits `_' to be in the literals list for a pattern.
770 ** Macros need to be defined before their first use.
772 It used to be that with lazy memoization, this might work:
776 (define-macro (ref x) x)
779 But now, the body of `foo' is interpreted to mean a call to the toplevel
780 `ref' function, instead of a macro expansion. The solution is to define
781 macros before code that uses them.
783 ** Functions needed by macros at expand-time need to be present at
786 For example, this code will work at the REPL:
788 (define (double-helper x) (* x x))
789 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
790 (double-literal 2) => 4
792 But it will not work when a file is compiled, because the definition of
793 `double-helper' is not present at expand-time. The solution is to wrap
794 the definition of `double-helper' in `eval-when':
796 (eval-when (load compile eval)
797 (define (double-helper x) (* x x)))
798 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
799 (double-literal 2) => 4
801 See the documentation for eval-when for more information.
803 ** `macroexpand' produces structures, not S-expressions.
805 Given the need to maintain referential transparency, both lexically and
806 modular, the result of expanding Scheme expressions is no longer itself
807 an s-expression. If you want a human-readable approximation of the
808 result of `macroexpand', call `tree-il->scheme' from `(language
811 ** Removed function: `macroexpand-1'
813 It is unclear how to implement `macroexpand-1' with syntax-case, though
814 PLT Scheme does prove that it is possible.
816 ** New reader macros: #' #` #, #,@
818 These macros translate, respectively, to `syntax', `quasisyntax',
819 `unsyntax', and `unsyntax-splicing'. See the R6RS for more information.
820 These reader macros may be overridden by `read-hash-extend'.
822 ** Incompatible change to #'
824 Guile did have a #' hash-extension, by default, which just returned the
825 subsequent datum: #'foo => foo. In the unlikely event that anyone
826 actually used this, this behavior may be reinstated via the
827 `read-hash-extend' mechanism.
829 ** Scheme expresssions may be commented out with #;
831 #; comments out an entire expression. See SRFI-62 or the R6RS for more
834 ** Prompts: Delimited, composable continuations
836 Guile now has prompts as part of its primitive language. See "Prompts"
837 in the manual, for more information.
839 Expressions entered in at the REPL, or from the command line, are
840 surrounded by a prompt with the default prompt tag.
842 ** `make-stack' with a tail-called procedural narrowing argument no longer
843 works (with compiled procedures)
845 It used to be the case that a captured stack could be narrowed to select
846 calls only up to or from a certain procedure, even if that procedure
847 already tail-called another procedure. This was because the debug
848 information from the original procedure was kept on the stack.
850 Now with the new compiler, the stack only contains active frames from
851 the current continuation. A narrow to a procedure that is not in the
852 stack will result in an empty stack. To fix this, narrow to a procedure
853 that is active in the current continuation, or narrow to a specific
854 number of stack frames.
856 ** Backtraces through compiled procedures only show procedures that are
857 active in the current continuation
859 Similarly to the previous issue, backtraces in compiled code may be
860 different from backtraces in interpreted code. There are no semantic
861 differences, however. Please mail bug-guile@gnu.org if you see any
862 deficiencies with Guile's backtraces.
864 ** New macro: `current-source-location'
866 The macro returns the current source location (to be documented).
868 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case macros now propagate source information
869 through to the expanded code
871 This should result in better backtraces.
873 ** The currying behavior of `define' has been removed.
875 Before, `(define ((f a) b) (* a b))' would translate to
877 (define f (lambda (a) (lambda (b) (* a b))))
879 Now a syntax error is signaled, as this syntax is not supported by
880 default. Use the `(ice-9 curried-definitions)' module to get back the
883 ** New procedure, `define!'
885 `define!' is a procedure that takes two arguments, a symbol and a value,
886 and binds the value to the symbol in the current module. It's useful to
887 programmatically make definitions in the current module, and is slightly
888 less verbose than `module-define!'.
890 ** All modules have names now
892 Before, you could have anonymous modules: modules without names. Now,
893 because of hygiene and macros, all modules have names. If a module was
894 created without a name, the first time `module-name' is called on it, a
895 fresh name will be lazily generated for it.
897 ** The module namespace is now separate from the value namespace
899 It was a little-known implementation detail of Guile's module system
900 that it was built on a single hierarchical namespace of values -- that
901 if there was a module named `(foo bar)', then in the module named
902 `(foo)' there was a binding from `bar' to the `(foo bar)' module.
904 This was a neat trick, but presented a number of problems. One problem
905 was that the bindings in a module were not apparent from the module
906 itself; perhaps the `(foo)' module had a private binding for `bar', and
907 then an external contributor defined `(foo bar)'. In the end there can
908 be only one binding, so one of the two will see the wrong thing, and
909 produce an obtuse error of unclear provenance.
911 Also, the public interface of a module was also bound in the value
912 namespace, as `%module-public-interface'. This was a hack from the early
913 days of Guile's modules.
915 Both of these warts have been fixed by the addition of fields in the
916 `module' data type. Access to modules and their interfaces from the
917 value namespace has been deprecated, and all accessors use the new
918 record accessors appropriately.
920 When Guile is built with support for deprecated code, as is the default,
921 the value namespace is still searched for modules and public interfaces,
922 and a deprecation warning is raised as appropriate.
924 Finally, to support lazy loading of modules as one used to be able to do
925 with module binder procedures, Guile now has submodule binders, called
926 if a given submodule is not found. See boot-9.scm for more information.
928 ** New procedures: module-ref-submodule, module-define-submodule,
929 nested-ref-module, nested-define-module!, local-ref-module,
932 These new accessors are like their bare variants, but operate on
933 namespaces instead of values.
935 ** The (app modules) module tree is officially deprecated
937 It used to be that one could access a module named `(foo bar)' via
938 `(nested-ref the-root-module '(app modules foo bar))'. The `(app
939 modules)' bit was a never-used and never-documented abstraction, and has
940 been deprecated. See the following mail for a full discussion:
942 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2010-04/msg00168.html
944 The `%app' binding is also deprecated.
946 ** `module-filename' field and accessor
948 Modules now record the file in which they are defined. This field may be
949 accessed with the new `module-filename' procedure.
951 ** Modules load within a known environment
953 It takes a few procedure calls to define a module, and those procedure
954 calls need to be in scope. Now we ensure that the current module when
955 loading a module is one that has the needed bindings, instead of relying
958 ** Many syntax errors have different texts now
960 Syntax errors still throw to the `syntax-error' key, but the arguments
961 are often different now. Perhaps in the future, Guile will switch to
962 using standard SRFI-35 conditions.
964 ** Returning multiple values to compiled code will silently truncate the
965 values to the expected number
967 For example, the interpreter would raise an error evaluating the form,
968 `(+ (values 1 2) (values 3 4))', because it would see the operands as
969 being two compound "values" objects, to which `+' does not apply.
971 The compiler, on the other hand, receives multiple values on the stack,
972 not as a compound object. Given that it must check the number of values
973 anyway, if too many values are provided for a continuation, it chooses
974 to truncate those values, effectively evaluating `(+ 1 3)' instead.
976 The idea is that the semantics that the compiler implements is more
977 intuitive, and the use of the interpreter will fade out with time.
978 This behavior is allowed both by the R5RS and the R6RS.
980 ** Multiple values in compiled code are not represented by compound
983 This change may manifest itself in the following situation:
985 (let ((val (foo))) (do-something) val)
987 In the interpreter, if `foo' returns multiple values, multiple values
988 are produced from the `let' expression. In the compiler, those values
989 are truncated to the first value, and that first value is returned. In
990 the compiler, if `foo' returns no values, an error will be raised, while
991 the interpreter would proceed.
993 Both of these behaviors are allowed by R5RS and R6RS. The compiler's
994 behavior is more correct, however. If you wish to preserve a potentially
995 multiply-valued return, you will need to set up a multiple-value
996 continuation, using `call-with-values'.
998 ** Defmacros are now implemented in terms of syntax-case.
1000 The practical ramification of this is that the `defmacro?' predicate has
1001 been removed, along with `defmacro-transformer', `macro-table',
1002 `xformer-table', `assert-defmacro?!', `set-defmacro-transformer!' and
1003 `defmacro:transformer'. This is because defmacros are simply macros. If
1004 any of these procedures provided useful facilities to you, we encourage
1005 you to contact the Guile developers.
1007 ** Hygienic macros documented as the primary syntactic extension mechanism.
1009 The macro documentation was finally fleshed out with some documentation
1010 on `syntax-rules' and `syntax-case' macros, and other parts of the macro
1011 expansion process. See "Macros" in the manual, for details.
1013 ** psyntax is now the default expander
1015 Scheme code is now expanded by default by the psyntax hygienic macro
1016 expander. Expansion is performed completely before compilation or
1019 Notably, syntax errors will be signalled before interpretation begins.
1020 In the past, many syntax errors were only detected at runtime if the
1021 code in question was memoized.
1023 As part of its expansion, psyntax renames all lexically-bound
1024 identifiers. Original identifier names are preserved and given to the
1025 compiler, but the interpreter will see the renamed variables, e.g.,
1026 `x432' instead of `x'.
1028 Note that the psyntax that Guile uses is a fork, as Guile already had
1029 modules before incompatible modules were added to psyntax -- about 10
1030 years ago! Thus there are surely a number of bugs that have been fixed
1031 in psyntax since then. If you find one, please notify bug-guile@gnu.org.
1033 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case are available by default.
1035 There is no longer any need to import the `(ice-9 syncase)' module
1036 (which is now deprecated). The expander may be invoked directly via
1037 `macroexpand', though it is normally searched for via the current module
1040 Also, the helper routines for syntax-case are available in the default
1041 environment as well: `syntax->datum', `datum->syntax',
1042 `bound-identifier=?', `free-identifier=?', `generate-temporaries',
1043 `identifier?', and `syntax-violation'. See the R6RS for documentation.
1045 ** Tail patterns in syntax-case
1047 Guile has pulled in some more recent changes from the psyntax portable
1048 syntax expander, to implement support for "tail patterns". Such patterns
1049 are supported by syntax-rules and syntax-case. This allows a syntax-case
1050 match clause to have ellipses, then a pattern at the end. For example:
1053 (syntax-rules (else)
1054 ((_ val match-clause ... (else e e* ...))
1057 Note how there is MATCH-CLAUSE, which is ellipsized, then there is a
1058 tail pattern for the else clause. Thanks to Andreas Rottmann for the
1059 patch, and Kent Dybvig for the code.
1061 ** Lexical bindings introduced by hygienic macros may not be referenced
1062 by nonhygienic macros.
1064 If a lexical binding is introduced by a hygienic macro, it may not be
1065 referenced by a nonhygienic macro. For example, this works:
1068 (define-macro (bind-x val body)
1069 `(let ((x ,val)) ,body))
1070 (define-macro (ref x)
1072 (bind-x 10 (ref x)))
1077 (define-syntax bind-x
1079 ((_ val body) (let ((x val)) body))))
1080 (define-macro (ref x)
1082 (bind-x 10 (ref x)))
1084 It is not normal to run into this situation with existing code. However,
1085 if you have defmacros that expand to hygienic macros, it is possible to
1086 run into situations like this. For example, if you have a defmacro that
1087 generates a `while' expression, the `break' bound by the `while' may not
1088 be visible within other parts of your defmacro. The solution is to port
1089 from defmacros to syntax-rules or syntax-case.
1091 ** Macros may no longer be referenced as first-class values.
1093 In the past, you could evaluate e.g. `if', and get its macro value. Now,
1094 expanding this form raises a syntax error.
1096 Macros still /exist/ as first-class values, but they must be
1097 /referenced/ via the module system, e.g. `(module-ref (current-module)
1100 ** Macros may now have docstrings.
1102 `object-documentation' from `(ice-9 documentation)' may be used to
1103 retrieve the docstring, once you have a macro value -- but see the above
1104 note about first-class macros. Docstrings are associated with the syntax
1105 transformer procedures.
1107 ** `case-lambda' is now available in the default environment.
1109 The binding in the default environment is equivalent to the one from the
1110 `(srfi srfi-16)' module. Use the srfi-16 module explicitly if you wish
1111 to maintain compatibility with Guile 1.8 and earlier.
1113 ** Procedures may now have more than one arity.
1115 This can be the case, for example, in case-lambda procedures. The
1116 arities of compiled procedures may be accessed via procedures from the
1117 `(system vm program)' module; see "Compiled Procedures", "Optional
1118 Arguments", and "Case-lambda" in the manual.
1120 ** Deprecate arity access via (procedure-properties proc 'arity)
1122 Instead of accessing a procedure's arity as a property, use the new
1123 `procedure-minimum-arity' function, which gives the most permissive
1124 arity that the the function has, in the same format as the old arity
1127 ** `lambda*' and `define*' are now available in the default environment
1129 As with `case-lambda', `(ice-9 optargs)' continues to be supported, for
1130 compatibility purposes. No semantic change has been made (we hope).
1131 Optional and keyword arguments now dispatch via special VM operations,
1132 without the need to cons rest arguments, making them very fast.
1134 ** New function, `truncated-print', with `format' support
1136 `(ice-9 pretty-print)' now exports `truncated-print', a printer that
1137 will ensure that the output stays within a certain width, truncating the
1138 output in what is hopefully an intelligent manner. See the manual for
1141 There is a new `format' specifier, `~@y', for doing a truncated
1142 print (as opposed to `~y', which does a pretty-print). See the `format'
1143 documentation for more details.
1145 ** Better pretty-printing
1147 Indentation recognizes more special forms, like `syntax-case', and read
1148 macros like `quote' are printed better.
1150 ** Passing a number as the destination of `format' is deprecated
1152 The `format' procedure in `(ice-9 format)' now emits a deprecation
1153 warning if a number is passed as its first argument.
1155 ** SRFI-4 vectors reimplemented in terms of R6RS bytevectors
1157 Guile now implements SRFI-4 vectors using bytevectors. Often when you
1158 have a numeric vector, you end up wanting to write its bytes somewhere,
1159 or have access to the underlying bytes, or read in bytes from somewhere
1160 else. Bytevectors are very good at this sort of thing. But the SRFI-4
1161 APIs are nicer to use when doing number-crunching, because they are
1162 addressed by element and not by byte.
1164 So as a compromise, Guile allows all bytevector functions to operate on
1165 numeric vectors. They address the underlying bytes in the native
1166 endianness, as one would expect.
1168 Following the same reasoning, that it's just bytes underneath, Guile
1169 also allows uniform vectors of a given type to be accessed as if they
1170 were of any type. One can fill a u32vector, and access its elements with
1171 u8vector-ref. One can use f64vector-ref on bytevectors. It's all the
1174 In this way, uniform numeric vectors may be written to and read from
1175 input/output ports using the procedures that operate on bytevectors.
1177 Calls to SRFI-4 accessors (ref and set functions) from Scheme are now
1178 inlined to the VM instructions for bytevector access.
1180 See "SRFI-4" in the manual, for more information.
1182 ** Nonstandard SRFI-4 procedures now available from `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)'
1184 Guile's `(srfi srfi-4)' now only exports those srfi-4 procedures that
1185 are part of the standard. Complex uniform vectors and the
1186 `any->FOOvector' family are now available only from `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)'.
1188 Guile's default environment imports `(srfi srfi-4)', and probably should
1189 import `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)' as well.
1191 See "SRFI-4 Extensions" in the manual, for more information.
1193 ** New syntax: include-from-path.
1195 `include-from-path' is like `include', except it looks for its file in
1196 the load path. It can be used to compile other files into a file.
1198 ** New syntax: quasisyntax.
1200 `quasisyntax' is to `syntax' as `quasiquote' is to `quote'. See the R6RS
1201 documentation for more information. Thanks to Andre van Tonder for the
1204 ** `*unspecified*' is identifier syntax
1206 `*unspecified*' is no longer a variable, so it is optimized properly by
1207 the compiler, and is not `set!'-able.
1209 ** Unicode characters
1211 Unicode characters may be entered in octal format via e.g. `#\454', or
1212 created via (integer->char 300). A hex external representation will
1213 probably be introduced at some point.
1217 Internally, strings are now represented either in the `latin-1'
1218 encoding, one byte per character, or in UTF-32, with four bytes per
1219 character. Strings manage their own allocation, switching if needed.
1221 Extended characters may be written in a literal string using the
1222 hexadecimal escapes `\xXX', `\uXXXX', or `\UXXXXXX', for 8-bit, 16-bit,
1223 or 24-bit codepoints, respectively, or entered directly in the native
1224 encoding of the port on which the string is read.
1228 One may now use U+03BB (GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMBDA) as an identifier.
1230 ** Support for non-ASCII source code files
1232 The default reader now handles source code files for some of the
1233 non-ASCII character encodings, such as UTF-8. A non-ASCII source file
1234 should have an encoding declaration near the top of the file. Also,
1235 there is a new function, `file-encoding', that scans a port for a coding
1236 declaration. See the section of the manual entitled, "Character Encoding
1239 The pre-1.9.3 reader handled 8-bit clean but otherwise unspecified source
1240 code. This use is now discouraged. Binary input and output is
1241 currently supported by opening ports in the ISO-8859-1 locale.
1243 ** Support for locale transcoding when reading from and writing to ports
1245 Ports now have an associated character encoding, and port read and write
1246 operations do conversion to and from locales automatically. Ports also
1247 have an associated strategy for how to deal with locale conversion
1250 See the documentation in the manual for the four new support functions,
1251 `set-port-encoding!', `port-encoding', `set-port-conversion-strategy!',
1252 and `port-conversion-strategy'.
1254 ** String and SRFI-13 functions can operate on Unicode strings
1256 ** Unicode support for SRFI-14 character sets
1258 The default character sets are no longer locale dependent and contain
1259 characters from the whole Unicode range. There is a new predefined
1260 character set, `char-set:designated', which contains all assigned
1261 Unicode characters. There is a new debugging function, `%char-set-dump'.
1263 ** Character functions operate on Unicode characters
1265 `char-upcase' and `char-downcase' use default Unicode casing rules.
1266 Character comparisons such as `char<?' and `char-ci<?' now sort based on
1267 Unicode code points.
1269 ** Global variables `scm_charnames' and `scm_charnums' are removed
1271 These variables contained the names of control characters and were
1272 used when writing characters. While these were global, they were
1273 never intended to be public API. They have been replaced with private
1276 ** EBCDIC support is removed
1278 There was an EBCDIC compile flag that altered some of the character
1279 processing. It appeared that full EBCDIC support was never completed
1280 and was unmaintained.
1282 ** Compile-time warnings
1284 Guile can warn about potentially unbound free variables. Pass the
1285 -Wunbound-variable on the `guile-tools compile' command line, or add
1286 `#:warnings '(unbound-variable)' to your `compile' or `compile-file'
1287 invocation. Warnings are also enabled by default for expressions entered
1290 Guile can also warn when you pass the wrong number of arguments to a
1291 procedure, with -Warity-mismatch, or `arity-mismatch' in the
1292 `#:warnings' as above.
1294 Other warnings include `-Wunused-variable' and `-Wunused-toplevel', to
1295 warn about unused local or global (top-level) variables, and `-Wformat',
1296 to check for various errors related to the `format' procedure.
1298 ** A new `memoize-symbol' evaluator trap has been added.
1300 This trap can be used for efficiently implementing a Scheme code
1303 ** Duplicate bindings among used modules are resolved lazily.
1305 This slightly improves program startup times.
1307 ** New thread cancellation and thread cleanup API
1309 See `cancel-thread', `set-thread-cleanup!', and `thread-cleanup'.
1311 ** New threads are in `(guile-user)' by default, not `(guile)'
1313 It used to be that a new thread entering Guile would do so in the
1314 `(guile)' module, unless this was the first time Guile was initialized,
1315 in which case it was `(guile-user)'. This has been fixed to have all
1316 new threads unknown to Guile default to `(guile-user)'.
1318 ** GOOPS dispatch in scheme
1320 As an implementation detail, GOOPS dispatch is no longer implemented by
1321 special evaluator bytecodes, but rather directly via a Scheme function
1322 associated with an applicable struct. There is some VM support for the
1323 underlying primitives, like `class-of'.
1325 This change will in the future allow users to customize generic function
1326 dispatch without incurring a performance penalty, and allow us to
1327 implement method combinations.
1329 ** Applicable struct support
1331 One may now make structs from Scheme that may be applied as procedures.
1332 To do so, make a struct whose vtable is `<applicable-struct-vtable>'.
1333 That struct will be the vtable of your applicable structs; instances of
1334 that new struct are assumed to have the procedure in their first slot.
1335 `<applicable-struct-vtable>' is like Common Lisp's
1336 `funcallable-standard-class'. Likewise there is
1337 `<applicable-struct-with-setter-vtable>', which looks for the setter in
1338 the second slot. This needs to be better documented.
1342 GOOPS had a number of concepts that were relevant to the days of Tcl,
1343 but not any more: operators and entities, mainly. These objects were
1344 never documented, and it is unlikely that they were ever used. Operators
1345 were a kind of generic specific to the Tcl support. Entities were
1346 replaced by applicable structs, mentioned above.
1348 ** New struct slot allocation: "hidden"
1350 A hidden slot is readable and writable, but will not be initialized by a
1351 call to make-struct. For example in your layout you would say "ph"
1352 instead of "pw". Hidden slots are useful for adding new slots to a
1353 vtable without breaking existing invocations to make-struct.
1355 ** eqv? not a generic
1357 One used to be able to extend `eqv?' as a primitive-generic, but no
1358 more. Because `eqv?' is in the expansion of `case' (via `memv'), which
1359 should be able to compile to static dispatch tables, it doesn't make
1360 sense to allow extensions that would subvert this optimization.
1362 ** `inet-ntop' and `inet-pton' are always available.
1364 Guile now use a portable implementation of `inet_pton'/`inet_ntop', so
1365 there is no more need to use `inet-aton'/`inet-ntoa'. The latter
1366 functions are deprecated.
1368 ** New primitive: `tmpfile'.
1370 See "File System" in the manual.
1372 ** Random generator state may be serialized to a datum
1374 `random-state->datum' will serialize a random state to a datum, which
1375 may be written out, read back in later, and revivified using
1376 `datum->random-state'. See "Random" in the manual, for more details.
1378 ** Fix random number generator on 64-bit platforms
1380 There was a nasty bug on 64-bit platforms in which asking for a random
1381 integer with a range between 2**32 and 2**64 caused a segfault. After
1382 many embarrassing iterations, this was fixed.
1384 ** Fast bit operations.
1386 The bit-twiddling operations `ash', `logand', `logior', and `logxor' now
1387 have dedicated bytecodes. Guile is not just for symbolic computation,
1388 it's for number crunching too.
1390 ** Faster SRFI-9 record access
1392 SRFI-9 records are now implemented directly on top of Guile's structs,
1393 and their accessors are defined in such a way that normal call-sites
1394 inline to special VM opcodes, while still allowing for the general case
1395 (e.g. passing a record accessor to `apply').
1397 ** R6RS block comment support
1399 Guile now supports R6RS nested block comments. The start of a comment is
1400 marked with `#|', and the end with `|#'.
1402 ** `guile-2' cond-expand feature
1404 To test if your code is running under Guile 2.0 (or its alpha releases),
1405 test for the `guile-2' cond-expand feature. Like this:
1407 (cond-expand (guile-2 (eval-when (compile)
1408 ;; This must be evaluated at compile time.
1409 (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
1411 ;; Earlier versions of Guile do not have a
1412 ;; separate compilation phase.
1413 (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
1415 ** New global variables: %load-compiled-path, %load-compiled-extensions
1417 These are analogous to %load-path and %load-extensions.
1419 ** New fluid: `%file-port-name-canonicalization'
1421 This fluid parameterizes the file names that are associated with file
1422 ports. If %file-port-name-canonicalization is 'absolute, then file names
1423 are canonicalized to be absolute paths. If it is 'relative, then the
1424 name is canonicalized, but any prefix corresponding to a member of
1425 `%load-path' is stripped off. Otherwise the names are passed through
1428 In addition, the `compile-file' and `compile-and-load' procedures bind
1429 %file-port-name-canonicalization to their `#:canonicalization' keyword
1430 argument, which defaults to 'relative. In this way, one might compile
1431 "../module/ice-9/boot-9.scm", but the path that gets residualized into
1432 the .go is "ice-9/boot-9.scm".
1434 ** New procedure, `make-promise'
1436 `(make-promise (lambda () foo))' is equivalent to `(delay foo)'.
1438 ** `defined?' may accept a module as its second argument
1440 Previously it only accepted internal structures from the evaluator.
1442 ** New entry into %guile-build-info: `ccachedir'
1444 ** Fix bug in `module-bound?'.
1446 `module-bound?' was returning true if a module did have a local
1447 variable, but one that was unbound, but another imported module bound
1448 the variable. This was an error, and was fixed.
1450 ** `(ice-9 syncase)' has been deprecated.
1452 As syntax-case is available by default, importing `(ice-9 syncase)' has
1453 no effect, and will trigger a deprecation warning.
1455 ** New readline history functions
1457 The (ice-9 readline) module now provides add-history, read-history,
1458 write-history and clear-history, which wrap the corresponding GNU
1459 History library functions.
1461 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures:
1462 dimensions->uniform-array, list->uniform-array, array-prototype
1464 Instead, use make-typed-array, list->typed-array, or array-type,
1467 ** Deprecate the old `scm-style-repl'
1469 The following bindings from boot-9 are now found in `(ice-9
1470 scm-style-repl)': `scm-style-repl', `error-catching-loop',
1471 `error-catching-repl', `bad-throw', `scm-repl-silent'
1472 `assert-repl-silence', `repl-print-unspecified',
1473 `assert-repl-print-unspecified', `scm-repl-verbose',
1474 `assert-repl-verbosity', `scm-repl-prompt', `set-repl-prompt!', `repl',
1475 `default-pre-unwind-handler', `handle-system-error',
1477 The following bindings have been deprecated, with no replacement:
1478 `pre-unwind-handler-dispatch'.
1480 The following bindings have been totally removed:
1481 `before-signal-stack'.
1483 Deprecated forwarding shims have been installed so that users that
1484 expect these bindings in the main namespace will still work, but receive
1485 a deprecation warning.
1487 ** `set-batch-mode?!' replaced by `ensure-batch-mode!'
1489 "Batch mode" is a flag used to tell a program that it is not running
1490 interactively. One usually turns it on after a fork. It may not be
1491 turned off. `ensure-batch-mode!' deprecates the old `set-batch-mode?!',
1492 because it is a better interface, as it can only turn on batch mode, not
1495 ** Deprecate `save-stack', `the-last-stack'
1497 It used to be that the way to debug programs in Guile was to capture the
1498 stack at the time of error, drop back to the REPL, then debug that
1499 stack. But this approach didn't compose, was tricky to get right in the
1500 presence of threads, and was not very powerful.
1502 So `save-stack', `stack-saved?', and `the-last-stack' have been moved to
1503 `(ice-9 save-stack)', with deprecated bindings left in the root module.
1505 ** `top-repl' has its own module
1507 The `top-repl' binding, called with Guile is run interactively, is now
1508 is its own module, `(ice-9 top-repl)'. A deprecated forwarding shim was
1509 left in the default environment.
1511 ** `display-error' takes a frame
1513 The `display-error' / `scm_display_error' helper now takes a frame as an
1514 argument instead of a stack. Stacks are still supported in deprecated
1515 builds. Additionally, `display-error' will again source location
1516 information for the error.
1518 ** No more `(ice-9 debug)'
1520 This module had some debugging helpers that are no longer applicable to
1521 the current debugging model. Importing this module will produce a
1522 deprecation warning. Users should contact bug-guile for support.
1524 ** Remove obsolete debug-options
1526 Removed `breakpoints', `trace', `procnames', `indent', `frames',
1527 `maxdepth', and `debug' debug-options.
1529 ** `backtrace' debug option on by default
1531 Given that Guile 2.0 can always give you a backtrace, backtraces are now
1534 ** `turn-on-debugging' deprecated
1536 ** Remove obsolete print-options
1538 The `source' and `closure-hook' print options are obsolete, and have
1541 ** Remove obsolete read-options
1543 The "elisp-strings" and "elisp-vectors" read options were unused and
1544 obsolete, so they have been removed.
1546 ** Remove eval-options and trap-options
1548 Eval-options and trap-options are obsolete with the new VM and
1551 ** Remove (ice-9 debugger) and (ice-9 debugging)
1553 See "Traps" and "Interactive Debugging" in the manual, for information
1554 on their replacements.
1556 ** Remove the GDS Emacs integration
1558 See "Using Guile in Emacs" in the manual, for info on how we think you
1559 should use Guile with Emacs.
1561 ** Deprecated: `lazy-catch'
1563 `lazy-catch' was a form that captured the stack at the point of a
1564 `throw', but the dynamic state at the point of the `catch'. It was a bit
1565 crazy. Please change to use `catch', possibly with a throw-handler, or
1566 `with-throw-handler'.
1568 ** Deprecated `@bind' syntax
1570 `@bind' was part of an older implementation of the Emacs Lisp language,
1571 and is no longer used.
1573 ** Miscellaneous other deprecations
1575 `apply-to-args', `has-suffix?', `scheme-file-suffix'
1576 `get-option', `for-next-option', `display-usage-report',
1577 `transform-usage-lambda', `collect', `set-batch-mode?!',
1579 `cuserid' has been deprecated, as it only returns 8 bytes of a user's
1580 login. Use `(passwd:name (getpwuid (geteuid)))' instead.
1582 ** Add support for unbound fluids
1584 See `make-unbound-fluid', `fluid-unset!', and `fluid-bound?' in the
1587 ** Add `variable-unset!'
1589 See "Variables" in the manual, for more details.
1591 ** Last but not least, the `λ' macro can be used in lieu of `lambda'
1593 * Changes to the C interface
1595 ** Guile now uses libgc, the Boehm-Demers-Weiser garbage collector
1597 The semantics of `scm_gc_malloc ()' have been changed, in a
1598 backward-compatible way. A new allocation routine,
1599 `scm_gc_malloc_pointerless ()', was added.
1601 Libgc is a conservative GC, which we hope will make interaction with C
1602 code easier and less error-prone.
1604 ** New procedures: `scm_to_latin1_stringn', `scm_from_latin1_stringn'
1606 Use these procedures when you know you have latin1-encoded or
1607 ASCII-encoded strings.
1609 ** New procedures: `scm_to_stringn', `scm_from_stringn'
1611 Use these procedures if you want to encode or decode from a particular
1614 ** New type definitions for `scm_t_intptr' and friends.
1616 `SCM_T_UINTPTR_MAX', `SCM_T_INTPTR_MIN', `SCM_T_INTPTR_MAX',
1617 `SIZEOF_SCM_T_BITS', `scm_t_intptr' and `scm_t_uintptr' are now
1618 available to C. Have fun!
1620 ** The GH interface (deprecated in version 1.6, 2001) was removed.
1622 ** Internal `scm_i_' functions now have "hidden" linkage with GCC/ELF
1624 This makes these internal functions technically not callable from
1627 ** Functions for handling `scm_option' now no longer require an argument
1628 indicating length of the `scm_t_option' array.
1630 ** Procedures-with-setters are now implemented using applicable structs
1632 From a user's perspective this doesn't mean very much. But if, for some
1633 odd reason, you used the SCM_PROCEDURE_WITH_SETTER_P, SCM_PROCEDURE, or
1634 SCM_SETTER macros, know that they're deprecated now. Also, scm_tc7_pws
1637 ** Remove old evaluator closures
1639 There used to be ranges of typecodes allocated to interpreted data
1640 structures, but that it no longer the case, given that interpreted
1641 procedure are now just regular VM closures. As a result, there is a
1642 newly free tc3, and a number of removed macros. See the ChangeLog for
1645 ** Primitive procedures are now VM trampoline procedures
1647 It used to be that there were something like 12 different typecodes
1648 allocated to primitive procedures, each with its own calling convention.
1649 Now there is only one, the gsubr. This may affect user code if you were
1650 defining a procedure using scm_c_make_subr rather scm_c_make_gsubr. The
1651 solution is to switch to use scm_c_make_gsubr. This solution works well
1652 both with the old 1.8 and and with the current 1.9 branch.
1654 Guile's old evaluator used to have special cases for applying "gsubrs",
1655 primitive procedures with specified numbers of required, optional, and
1656 rest arguments. Now, however, Guile represents gsubrs as normal VM
1657 procedures, with appropriate bytecode to parse out the correct number of
1658 arguments, including optional and rest arguments, and then with a
1659 special bytecode to apply the gsubr.
1661 This allows primitive procedures to appear on the VM stack, allowing
1662 them to be accurately counted in profiles. Also they now have more
1663 debugging information attached to them -- their number of arguments, for
1664 example. In addition, the VM can completely inline the application
1665 mechanics, allowing for faster primitive calls.
1667 However there are some changes on the C level. There is no more
1668 `scm_tc7_gsubr' or `scm_tcs_subrs' typecode for primitive procedures, as
1669 they are just VM procedures. Likewise the macros `SCM_GSUBR_TYPE',
1670 `SCM_GSUBR_MAKTYPE', `SCM_GSUBR_REQ', `SCM_GSUBR_OPT', and
1671 `SCM_GSUBR_REST' are gone, as are `SCM_SUBR_META_INFO', `SCM_SUBR_PROPS'
1672 `SCM_SET_SUBR_GENERIC_LOC', and `SCM_SUBR_ARITY_TO_TYPE'.
1674 Perhaps more significantly, `scm_c_make_subr',
1675 `scm_c_make_subr_with_generic', `scm_c_define_subr', and
1676 `scm_c_define_subr_with_generic'. They all operated on subr typecodes,
1677 and there are no more subr typecodes. Use the scm_c_make_gsubr family
1680 Normal users of gsubrs should not be affected, though, as the
1681 scm_c_make_gsubr family still is the correct way to create primitive
1684 ** Remove deprecated array C interfaces
1686 Removed the deprecated array functions `scm_i_arrayp',
1687 `scm_i_array_ndim', `scm_i_array_mem', `scm_i_array_v',
1688 `scm_i_array_base', `scm_i_array_dims', and the deprecated macros
1689 `SCM_ARRAYP', `SCM_ARRAY_NDIM', `SCM_ARRAY_CONTP', `SCM_ARRAY_MEM',
1690 `SCM_ARRAY_V', `SCM_ARRAY_BASE', and `SCM_ARRAY_DIMS'.
1692 ** Remove unused snarf macros
1694 `SCM_DEFINE1', `SCM_PRIMITIVE_GENERIC_1', `SCM_PROC1, and `SCM_GPROC1'
1695 are no more. Use SCM_DEFINE or SCM_PRIMITIVE_GENERIC instead.
1697 ** New functions: `scm_call_n', `scm_c_run_hookn'
1699 `scm_call_n' applies to apply a function to an array of arguments.
1700 `scm_c_run_hookn' runs a hook with an array of arguments.
1702 ** Some SMOB types changed to have static typecodes
1704 Fluids, dynamic states, and hash tables used to be SMOB objects, but now
1705 they have statically allocated tc7 typecodes.
1707 ** Preparations for changing SMOB representation
1709 If things go right, we'll be changing the SMOB representation soon. To
1710 that end, we did a lot of cleanups to calls to e.g. SCM_CELL_WORD_2(x) when
1711 the code meant SCM_SMOB_DATA_2(x); user code will need similar changes
1712 in the future. Code accessing SMOBs using SCM_CELL macros was never
1713 correct, but until now things still worked. Users should be aware of
1716 ** Changed invocation mechanics of applicable SMOBs
1718 Guile's old evaluator used to have special cases for applying SMOB
1719 objects. Now, with the VM, when Guile sees a SMOB, it looks up a VM
1720 trampoline procedure for it, and use the normal mechanics to apply the
1721 trampoline. This simplifies procedure application in the normal,
1724 The upshot is that the mechanics used to apply a SMOB are different from
1725 1.8. Descriptors no longer have `apply_0', `apply_1', `apply_2', and
1726 `apply_3' functions, and the macros SCM_SMOB_APPLY_0 and friends are now
1727 deprecated. Just use the scm_call_0 family of procedures.
1729 ** Removed support shlibs for SRFIs 1, 4, 13, 14, and 60
1731 Though these SRFI support libraries did expose API, they encoded a
1732 strange version string into their library names. That version was never
1733 programmatically exported, so there was no way people could use the
1736 This was a fortunate oversight, as it allows us to remove the need for
1737 extra, needless shared libraries --- the C support code for SRFIs 4, 13,
1738 and 14 was already in core --- and allow us to incrementally return the
1739 SRFI implementation to Scheme.
1741 ** New C function: scm_module_public_interface
1743 This procedure corresponds to Scheme's `module-public-interface'.
1745 ** Undeprecate `scm_the_root_module ()'
1747 It's useful to be able to get the root module from C without doing a
1750 ** Inline vector allocation
1752 Instead of having vectors point out into the heap for their data, their
1753 data is now allocated inline to the vector object itself. The same is
1754 true for bytevectors, by default, though there is an indirection
1755 available which should allow for making a bytevector from an existing
1758 ** New struct constructors that don't involve making lists
1760 `scm_c_make_struct' and `scm_c_make_structv' are new varargs and array
1761 constructors, respectively, for structs. You might find them useful.
1765 In Guile 1.8, there were debugging frames on the C stack. Now there is
1766 no more need to explicitly mark the stack in this way, because Guile has
1767 a VM stack that it knows how to walk, which simplifies the C API
1768 considerably. See the ChangeLog for details; the relevant interface is
1769 in libguile/stacks.h. The Scheme API has not been changed significantly.
1771 ** Removal of Guile's primitive object system.
1773 There were a number of pieces in `objects.[ch]' that tried to be a
1774 minimal object system, but were never documented, and were quickly
1775 obseleted by GOOPS' merge into Guile proper. So `scm_make_class_object',
1776 `scm_make_subclass_object', `scm_metaclass_standard', and like symbols
1777 from objects.h are no more. In the very unlikely case in which these
1778 were useful to you, we urge you to contact guile-devel.
1782 Actually the future is still in the state that it was, is, and ever
1783 shall be, Amen, except that `futures.c' and `futures.h' are no longer a
1784 part of it. These files were experimental, never compiled, and would be
1785 better implemented in Scheme anyway. In the future, that is.
1787 ** Deprecate trampolines
1789 There used to be C functions `scm_trampoline_0', `scm_trampoline_1', and
1790 so on. The point was to do some precomputation on the type of the
1791 procedure, then return a specialized "call" procedure. However this
1792 optimization wasn't actually an optimization, so it is now deprecated.
1793 Just use `scm_call_0', etc instead.
1795 ** Deprecated `scm_badargsp'
1797 This function is unused in Guile, but was part of its API.
1799 ** Better support for Lisp `nil'.
1801 The bit representation of `nil' has been tweaked so that it is now very
1802 efficient to check e.g. if a value is equal to Scheme's end-of-list or
1803 Lisp's nil. Additionally there are a heap of new, specific predicates
1804 like scm_is_null_or_nil.
1806 ** Better integration of Lisp `nil'.
1808 `scm_is_boolean', `scm_is_false', and `scm_is_null' all return true now
1809 for Lisp's `nil'. This shouldn't affect any Scheme code at this point,
1810 but when we start to integrate more with Emacs, it is possible that we
1811 break code that assumes that, for example, `(not x)' implies that `x' is
1812 `eq?' to `#f'. This is not a common assumption. Refactoring affected
1813 code to rely on properties instead of identities will improve code
1814 correctness. See "Nil" in the manual, for more details.
1816 ** Support for static allocation of strings, symbols, and subrs.
1818 Calls to snarfing CPP macros like SCM_DEFINE macro will now allocate
1819 much of their associated data as static variables, reducing Guile's
1822 ** `scm_stat' has an additional argument, `exception_on_error'
1823 ** `scm_primitive_load_path' has an additional argument `exception_on_not_found'
1825 ** `scm_set_port_seek' and `scm_set_port_truncate' use the `scm_t_off' type
1827 Previously they would use the `off_t' type, which is fragile since its
1828 definition depends on the application's value for `_FILE_OFFSET_BITS'.
1830 ** The `long_long' C type, deprecated in 1.8, has been removed
1832 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures: scm_make_uve,
1833 scm_array_prototype, scm_list_to_uniform_array,
1834 scm_dimensions_to_uniform_array, scm_make_ra, scm_shap2ra, scm_cvref,
1835 scm_ra_set_contp, scm_aind, scm_raprin1
1837 These functions have been deprecated since early 2005.
1839 * Changes to the distribution
1841 ** Guile's license is now LGPLv3+
1843 In other words the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3 or
1844 later (at the discretion of each person that chooses to redistribute
1849 Guile's build is visually quieter, due to the use of Automake 1.11's
1850 AM_SILENT_RULES. Build as `make V=1' to see all of the output.
1852 ** GOOPS documentation folded into Guile reference manual
1854 GOOPS, Guile's object system, used to be documented in separate manuals.
1855 This content is now included in Guile's manual directly.
1857 ** `guile-config' will be deprecated in favor of `pkg-config'
1859 `guile-config' has been rewritten to get its information from
1860 `pkg-config', so this should be a transparent change. Note however that
1861 guile.m4 has yet to be modified to call pkg-config instead of
1864 ** Guile now provides `guile-2.0.pc' instead of `guile-1.8.pc'
1866 Programs that use `pkg-config' to find Guile or one of its Autoconf
1867 macros should now require `guile-2.0' instead of `guile-1.8'.
1869 ** New installation directory: $(pkglibdir)/1.9/ccache
1871 If $(libdir) is /usr/lib, for example, Guile will install its .go files
1872 to /usr/lib/guile/1.9/ccache. These files are architecture-specific.
1874 ** Parallel installability fixes
1876 Guile now installs its header files to a effective-version-specific
1877 directory, and includes the effective version (e.g. 2.0) in the library
1878 name (e.g. libguile-2.0.so).
1880 This change should be transparent to users, who should detect Guile via
1881 the guile.m4 macro, or the guile-2.0.pc pkg-config file. It will allow
1882 parallel installs for multiple versions of Guile development
1885 ** Dynamically loadable extensions may be placed in a Guile-specific path
1887 Before, Guile only searched the system library paths for extensions
1888 (e.g. /usr/lib), which meant that the names of Guile extensions had to
1889 be globally unique. Installing them to a Guile-specific extensions
1890 directory is cleaner. Use `pkg-config --variable=extensiondir
1891 guile-2.0' to get the location of the extensions directory.
1893 ** User Scheme code may be placed in a version-specific path
1895 Before, there was only one way to install user Scheme code to a
1896 version-specific Guile directory: install to Guile's own path,
1897 e.g. /usr/share/guile/2.0. The site directory,
1898 e.g. /usr/share/guile/site, was unversioned. This has been changed to
1899 add a version-specific site directory, e.g. /usr/share/guile/site/2.0,
1900 searched before the global site directory.
1902 ** New dependency: libgc
1904 See http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/, for more information.
1906 ** New dependency: GNU libunistring
1908 See http://www.gnu.org/software/libunistring/, for more information. Our
1909 Unicode support uses routines from libunistring.
1911 ** New dependency: libffi
1913 See http://sourceware.org/libffi/, for more information.
1917 Changes in 1.8.8 (since 1.8.7)
1921 ** Fix possible buffer overruns when parsing numbers
1922 ** Avoid clash with system setjmp/longjmp on IA64
1923 ** Fix `wrong type arg' exceptions with IPv6 addresses
1926 Changes in 1.8.7 (since 1.8.6)
1928 * New modules (see the manual for details)
1930 ** `(srfi srfi-98)', an interface to access environment variables
1934 ** Fix compilation with `--disable-deprecated'
1935 ** Fix %fast-slot-ref/set!, to avoid possible segmentation fault
1936 ** Fix MinGW build problem caused by HAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC confusion
1937 ** Fix build problem when scm_t_timespec is different from struct timespec
1938 ** Fix build when compiled with -Wundef -Werror
1939 ** More build fixes for `alphaev56-dec-osf5.1b' (Tru64)
1940 ** Build fixes for `powerpc-ibm-aix5.3.0.0' (AIX 5.3)
1941 ** With GCC, always compile with `-mieee' on `alpha*' and `sh*'
1942 ** Better diagnose broken `(strftime "%z" ...)' in `time.test' (bug #24130)
1943 ** Fix parsing of SRFI-88/postfix keywords longer than 128 characters
1944 ** Fix reading of complex numbers where both parts are inexact decimals
1946 ** Allow @ macro to work with (ice-9 syncase)
1948 Previously, use of the @ macro in a module whose code is being
1949 transformed by (ice-9 syncase) would cause an "Invalid syntax" error.
1950 Now it works as you would expect (giving the value of the specified
1953 ** Have `scm_take_locale_symbol ()' return an interned symbol (bug #25865)
1956 Changes in 1.8.6 (since 1.8.5)
1958 * New features (see the manual for details)
1960 ** New convenience function `scm_c_symbol_length ()'
1962 ** Single stepping through code from Emacs
1964 When you use GDS to evaluate Scheme code from Emacs, you can now use
1965 `C-u' to indicate that you want to single step through that code. See
1966 `Evaluating Scheme Code' in the manual for more details.
1968 ** New "guile(1)" man page!
1970 * Changes to the distribution
1972 ** Automake's `AM_MAINTAINER_MODE' is no longer used
1974 Thus, the `--enable-maintainer-mode' configure option is no longer
1975 available: Guile is now always configured in "maintainer mode".
1977 ** `ChangeLog' files are no longer updated
1979 Instead, changes are detailed in the version control system's logs. See
1980 the top-level `ChangeLog' files for details.
1985 ** `symbol->string' now returns a read-only string, as per R5RS
1986 ** Fix incorrect handling of the FLAGS argument of `fold-matches'
1987 ** `guile-config link' now prints `-L$libdir' before `-lguile'
1988 ** Fix memory corruption involving GOOPS' `class-redefinition'
1989 ** Fix possible deadlock in `mutex-lock'
1990 ** Fix build issue on Tru64 and ia64-hp-hpux11.23 (`SCM_UNPACK' macro)
1991 ** Fix build issue on mips, mipsel, powerpc and ia64 (stack direction)
1992 ** Fix build issue on hppa2.0w-hp-hpux11.11 (`dirent64' and `readdir64_r')
1993 ** Fix build issue on i386-unknown-freebsd7.0 ("break strict-aliasing rules")
1994 ** Fix misleading output from `(help rationalize)'
1995 ** Fix build failure on Debian hppa architecture (bad stack growth detection)
1996 ** Fix `gcd' when called with a single, negative argument.
1997 ** Fix `Stack overflow' errors seen when building on some platforms
1998 ** Fix bug when `scm_with_guile ()' was called several times from the
2000 ** The handler of SRFI-34 `with-exception-handler' is now invoked in the
2001 dynamic environment of the call to `raise'
2002 ** Fix potential deadlock in `make-struct'
2003 ** Fix compilation problem with libltdl from Libtool 2.2.x
2004 ** Fix sloppy bound checking in `string-{ref,set!}' with the empty string
2007 Changes in 1.8.5 (since 1.8.4)
2009 * Infrastructure changes
2011 ** Guile repository switched from CVS to Git
2013 The new repository can be accessed using
2014 "git-clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/guile.git", or can be browsed on-line at
2015 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=guile.git . See `README' for details.
2017 ** Add support for `pkg-config'
2019 See "Autoconf Support" in the manual for details.
2021 * New modules (see the manual for details)
2025 * New features (see the manual for details)
2027 ** New `postfix' read option, for SRFI-88 keyword syntax
2028 ** Some I/O primitives have been inlined, which improves I/O performance
2029 ** New object-based traps infrastructure
2031 This is a GOOPS-based infrastructure that builds on Guile's low-level
2032 evaluator trap calls and facilitates the development of debugging
2033 features like single-stepping, breakpoints, tracing and profiling.
2034 See the `Traps' node of the manual for details.
2036 ** New support for working on Guile code from within Emacs
2038 Guile now incorporates the `GDS' library (previously distributed
2039 separately) for working on Guile code from within Emacs. See the
2040 `Using Guile In Emacs' node of the manual for details.
2044 ** `scm_add_slot ()' no longer segfaults (fixes bug #22369)
2045 ** Fixed `(ice-9 match)' for patterns like `((_ ...) ...)'
2047 Previously, expressions like `(match '((foo) (bar)) (((_ ...) ...) #t))'
2048 would trigger an unbound variable error for `match:andmap'.
2050 ** `(oop goops describe)' now properly provides the `describe' feature
2051 ** Fixed `args-fold' from `(srfi srfi-37)'
2053 Previously, parsing short option names of argument-less options would
2054 lead to a stack overflow.
2056 ** `(srfi srfi-35)' is now visible through `cond-expand'
2057 ** Fixed type-checking for the second argument of `eval'
2058 ** Fixed type-checking for SRFI-1 `partition'
2059 ** Fixed `struct-ref' and `struct-set!' on "light structs"
2060 ** Honor struct field access rights in GOOPS
2061 ** Changed the storage strategy of source properties, which fixes a deadlock
2062 ** Allow compilation of Guile-using programs in C99 mode with GCC 4.3 and later
2063 ** Fixed build issue for GNU/Linux on IA64
2064 ** Fixed build issues on NetBSD 1.6
2065 ** Fixed build issue on Solaris 2.10 x86_64
2066 ** Fixed build issue with DEC/Compaq/HP's compiler
2067 ** Fixed `scm_from_complex_double' build issue on FreeBSD
2068 ** Fixed `alloca' build issue on FreeBSD 6
2069 ** Removed use of non-portable makefile constructs
2070 ** Fixed shadowing of libc's <random.h> on Tru64, which broke compilation
2071 ** Make sure all tests honor `$TMPDIR'
2074 Changes in 1.8.4 (since 1.8.3)
2078 ** CR (ASCII 0x0d) is (again) recognized as a token delimiter by the reader
2079 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when displaying the
2080 backtrace of a stack with a promise object (made by `delay') in it.
2081 ** Make `accept' leave guile mode while blocking
2082 ** `scm_c_read ()' and `scm_c_write ()' now type-check their port argument
2083 ** Fixed a build problem on AIX (use of func_data identifier)
2084 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when hashx-ref or hashx-set! was
2085 called with an associator proc that returns neither a pair nor #f.
2086 ** Secondary threads now always return a valid module for (current-module).
2087 ** Avoid MacOS build problems caused by incorrect combination of "64"
2088 system and library calls.
2089 ** `guile-snarf' now honors `$TMPDIR'
2090 ** `guile-config compile' now reports CPPFLAGS used at compile-time
2091 ** Fixed build with Sun Studio (Solaris 9)
2092 ** Fixed wrong-type-arg errors when creating zero length SRFI-4
2093 uniform vectors on AIX.
2094 ** Fixed a deadlock that occurs upon GC with multiple threads.
2095 ** Fixed compile problem with GCC on Solaris and AIX (use of _Complex_I)
2096 ** Fixed autotool-derived build problems on AIX 6.1.
2097 ** Fixed NetBSD/alpha support
2098 ** Fixed MacOS build problem caused by use of rl_get_keymap(_name)
2100 * New modules (see the manual for details)
2104 * Documentation fixes and improvements
2106 ** Removed premature breakpoint documentation
2108 The features described are not available in the series of 1.8.x
2109 releases, so the documentation was misleading and has been removed.
2111 ** More about Guile's default *random-state* variable
2113 ** GOOPS: more about how to use `next-method'
2115 * Changes to the distribution
2117 ** Corrected a few files that referred incorrectly to the old GPL + special exception licence
2119 In fact Guile since 1.8.0 has been licensed with the GNU Lesser
2120 General Public License, and the few incorrect files have now been
2121 fixed to agree with the rest of the Guile distribution.
2123 ** Removed unnecessary extra copies of COPYING*
2125 The distribution now contains a single COPYING.LESSER at its top level.
2128 Changes in 1.8.3 (since 1.8.2)
2130 * New modules (see the manual for details)
2137 ** The `(ice-9 slib)' module now works as expected
2138 ** Expressions like "(set! 'x #t)" no longer yield a crash
2139 ** Warnings about duplicate bindings now go to stderr
2140 ** A memory leak in `make-socket-address' was fixed
2141 ** Alignment issues (e.g., on SPARC) in network routines were fixed
2142 ** A threading issue that showed up at least on NetBSD was fixed
2143 ** Build problems on Solaris and IRIX fixed
2145 * Implementation improvements
2147 ** The reader is now faster, which reduces startup time
2148 ** Procedures returned by `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' are faster
2151 Changes in 1.8.2 (since 1.8.1):
2153 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
2155 ** set-program-arguments
2158 * Incompatible changes
2160 ** The body of a top-level `define' no longer sees the binding being created
2162 In a top-level `define', the binding being created is no longer visible
2163 from the `define' body. This breaks code like
2164 "(define foo (begin (set! foo 1) (+ foo 1)))", where `foo' is now
2165 unbound in the body. However, such code was not R5RS-compliant anyway,
2170 ** Fractions were not `equal?' if stored in unreduced form.
2171 (A subtle problem, since printing a value reduced it, making it work.)
2172 ** srfi-60 `copy-bit' failed on 64-bit systems
2173 ** "guile --use-srfi" option at the REPL can replace core functions
2174 (Programs run with that option were ok, but in the interactive REPL
2175 the core bindings got priority, preventing SRFI replacements or
2177 ** `regexp-exec' doesn't abort() on #\nul in the input or bad flags arg
2178 ** `kill' on mingw throws an error for a PID other than oneself
2179 ** Procedure names are attached to procedure-with-setters
2180 ** Array read syntax works with negative lower bound
2181 ** `array-in-bounds?' fix if an array has different lower bounds on each index
2182 ** `*' returns exact 0 for "(* inexact 0)"
2183 This follows what it always did for "(* 0 inexact)".
2184 ** SRFI-19: Value returned by `(current-time time-process)' was incorrect
2185 ** SRFI-19: `date->julian-day' did not account for timezone offset
2186 ** `ttyname' no longer crashes when passed a non-tty argument
2187 ** `inet-ntop' no longer crashes on SPARC when passed an `AF_INET' address
2188 ** Small memory leaks have been fixed in `make-fluid' and `add-history'
2189 ** GOOPS: Fixed a bug in `method-more-specific?'
2190 ** Build problems on Solaris fixed
2191 ** Build problems on HP-UX IA64 fixed
2192 ** Build problems on MinGW fixed
2195 Changes in 1.8.1 (since 1.8.0):
2197 * LFS functions are now used to access 64-bit files on 32-bit systems.
2199 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
2201 ** primitive-_exit - [Scheme] the-root-module
2202 ** scm_primitive__exit - [C]
2203 ** make-completion-function - [Scheme] (ice-9 readline)
2204 ** scm_c_locale_stringn_to_number - [C]
2205 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse [C]
2206 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse_x [C]
2214 ** Build problems have been fixed on MacOS, SunOS, and QNX.
2216 ** `strftime' fix sign of %z timezone offset.
2218 ** A one-dimensional array can now be 'equal?' to a vector.
2220 ** Structures, records, and SRFI-9 records can now be compared with `equal?'.
2222 ** SRFI-14 standard char sets are recomputed upon a successful `setlocale'.
2224 ** `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' now have strict type checks.
2226 Record accessor and modifier procedures now throw an error if the
2227 record type of the record they're given is not the type expected.
2228 (Previously accessors returned #f and modifiers silently did nothing).
2230 ** It is now OK to use both autoload and use-modules on a given module.
2232 ** `apply' checks the number of arguments more carefully on "0 or 1" funcs.
2234 Previously there was no checking on primatives like make-vector that
2235 accept "one or two" arguments. Now there is.
2237 ** The srfi-1 assoc function now calls its equality predicate properly.
2239 Previously srfi-1 assoc would call the equality predicate with the key
2240 last. According to the SRFI, the key should be first.
2242 ** A bug in n-par-for-each and n-for-each-par-map has been fixed.
2244 ** The array-set! procedure no longer segfaults when given a bit vector.
2246 ** Bugs in make-shared-array have been fixed.
2248 ** string<? and friends now follow char<? etc order on 8-bit chars.
2250 ** The format procedure now handles inf and nan values for ~f correctly.
2252 ** exact->inexact should no longer overflow when given certain large fractions.
2254 ** srfi-9 accessor and modifier procedures now have strict record type checks.
2256 This matches the srfi-9 specification.
2258 ** (ice-9 ftw) procedures won't ignore different files with same inode number.
2260 Previously the (ice-9 ftw) procedures would ignore any file that had
2261 the same inode number as a file they had already seen, even if that
2262 file was on a different device.
2265 Changes in 1.8.0 (changes since the 1.6.x series):
2267 * Changes to the distribution
2269 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
2271 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
2273 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
2275 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
2277 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
2279 That is, things like HAVE_STRING_H no longer leak from Guile's
2282 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
2284 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
2285 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
2286 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
2287 so the current effective-version is "1.8". The effective version
2288 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
2289 items like the versioned share directory name
2290 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.8.
2292 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
2293 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
2294 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
2295 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
2296 with each micro release during a stable series.
2298 ** Thread implementation has changed.
2300 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
2301 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
2302 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
2303 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
2304 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
2307 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
2308 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
2309 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
2310 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
2313 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
2314 in which case "null" threads are used.
2316 See the manual for details, nodes "Initialization", "Multi-Threading",
2317 "Blocking", and others.
2319 ** There is the new notion of 'discouraged' features.
2321 This is a milder form of deprecation.
2323 Things that are discouraged should not be used in new code, but it is
2324 OK to leave them in old code for now. When a discouraged feature is
2325 used, no warning message is printed like there is for 'deprecated'
2326 features. Also, things that are merely discouraged are nevertheless
2327 implemented efficiently, while deprecated features can be very slow.
2329 You can omit discouraged features from libguile by configuring it with
2330 the '--disable-discouraged' option.
2332 ** Deprecation warnings can be controlled at run-time.
2334 (debug-enable 'warn-deprecated) switches them on and (debug-disable
2335 'warn-deprecated) switches them off.
2337 ** Support for SRFI 61, extended cond syntax for multiple values has
2340 This SRFI is always available.
2342 ** Support for require-extension, SRFI-55, has been added.
2344 The SRFI-55 special form `require-extension' has been added. It is
2345 available at startup, and provides a portable way to load Scheme
2346 extensions. SRFI-55 only requires support for one type of extension,
2347 "srfi"; so a set of SRFIs may be loaded via (require-extension (srfi 1
2350 ** New module (srfi srfi-26) provides support for `cut' and `cute'.
2352 The (srfi srfi-26) module is an implementation of SRFI-26 which
2353 provides the `cut' and `cute' syntax. These may be used to specialize
2354 parameters without currying.
2356 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
2358 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
2359 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
2361 ** The modules (srfi srfi-13), (srfi srfi-14) and (srfi srfi-4) have
2362 been merged with the core, making their functionality always
2365 The modules are still available, tho, and you could use them together
2366 with a renaming import, for example.
2368 ** Guile no longer includes its own version of libltdl.
2370 The official version is good enough now.
2372 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
2374 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
2375 provided. Use 'make html'.
2377 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
2379 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when you
2380 don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but where you
2381 have some section(s) of code which you consider can run in parallel to
2382 other sections. See ice-9/serialize.scm for more information.
2384 ** The configure option '--disable-arrays' has been removed.
2386 Support for arrays and uniform numeric arrays is now always included
2389 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2391 ** New command line option `-L'.
2393 This option adds a directory to the front of the load path.
2395 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
2397 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
2398 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
2400 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
2402 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
2403 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
2405 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
2407 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
2408 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
2411 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
2414 (define-module (demo)
2418 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
2421 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2423 ** Guardians have changed back to their original semantics
2425 Guardians now behave like described in the paper by Dybvig et al. In
2426 particular, they no longer make guarantees about the order in which
2427 they return objects, and they can no longer be greedy.
2429 They no longer drop cyclic data structures.
2431 The C function scm_make_guardian has been changed incompatibly and no
2432 longer takes the 'greedy_p' argument.
2434 ** New function hashx-remove!
2436 This function completes the set of 'hashx' functions.
2438 ** The concept of dynamic roots has been factored into continuation
2439 barriers and dynamic states.
2441 Each thread has a current dynamic state that carries the values of the
2442 fluids. You can create and copy dynamic states and use them as the
2443 second argument for 'eval'. See "Fluids and Dynamic States" in the
2446 To restrict the influence that captured continuations can have on the
2447 control flow, you can errect continuation barriers. See "Continuation
2448 Barriers" in the manual.
2450 The function call-with-dynamic-root now essentially temporarily
2451 installs a new dynamic state and errects a continuation barrier.
2453 ** The default load path no longer includes "." at the end.
2455 Automatically loading modules from the current directory should not
2456 happen by default. If you want to allow it in a more controlled
2457 manner, set the environment variable GUILE_LOAD_PATH or the Scheme
2458 variable %load-path.
2460 ** The uniform vector and array support has been overhauled.
2462 It now complies with SRFI-4 and the weird prototype based uniform
2463 array creation has been deprecated. See the manual for more details.
2465 Some non-compatible changes have been made:
2466 - characters can no longer be stored into byte arrays.
2467 - strings and bit vectors are no longer considered to be uniform numeric
2469 - array-rank throws an error for non-arrays instead of returning zero.
2470 - array-ref does no longer accept non-arrays when no indices are given.
2472 There is the new notion of 'generalized vectors' and corresponding
2473 procedures like 'generalized-vector-ref'. Generalized vectors include
2474 strings, bitvectors, ordinary vectors, and uniform numeric vectors.
2476 Arrays use generalized vectors as their storage, so that you still
2477 have arrays of characters, bits, etc. However, uniform-array-read!
2478 and uniform-array-write can no longer read/write strings and
2481 ** There is now support for copy-on-write substrings, mutation-sharing
2482 substrings and read-only strings.
2484 Three new procedures are related to this: substring/shared,
2485 substring/copy, and substring/read-only. See the manual for more
2488 ** Backtraces will now highlight the value that caused the error.
2490 By default, these values are enclosed in "{...}", such as in this
2499 <unnamed port>:1:1: In procedure car in expression (car (quote a)):
2500 <unnamed port>:1:1: Wrong type (expecting pair): a
2501 ABORT: (wrong-type-arg)
2503 The prefix and suffix used for highlighting can be set via the two new
2504 printer options 'highlight-prefix' and 'highlight-suffix'. For
2505 example, putting this into ~/.guile will output the bad value in bold
2506 on an ANSI terminal:
2508 (print-set! highlight-prefix "\x1b[1m")
2509 (print-set! highlight-suffix "\x1b[22m")
2512 ** 'gettext' support for internationalization has been added.
2514 See the manual for details.
2516 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
2518 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
2521 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
2523 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
2524 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
2525 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
2526 '@' as a target of 'set!', as in (set! (@ mod var) val).
2528 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
2529 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
2530 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
2533 ** Keyword syntax has been made more disciplined.
2535 Previously, the name of a keyword was read as a 'token' but printed as
2536 a symbol. Now, it is read as a general Scheme datum which must be a
2547 ERROR: In expression (a b c):
2551 ERROR: Unbound variable: foo
2556 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): 12
2560 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): (a b c)
2564 ** The printing of symbols that might look like keywords can be
2567 The new printer option 'quote-keywordish-symbols' controls how symbols
2568 are printed that have a colon as their first or last character. The
2569 default now is to only quote a symbol with #{...}# when the read
2570 option 'keywords' is not '#f'. Thus:
2572 guile> (define foo (string->symbol ":foo"))
2573 guile> (read-set! keywords #f)
2576 guile> (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
2579 guile> (print-set! quote-keywordish-symbols #f)
2583 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
2585 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
2586 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
2587 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
2590 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
2593 ** The module system now checks for duplicate bindings.
2595 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
2598 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more 'duplicates'
2599 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
2602 (define-module (foo)
2607 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
2608 has been detected is to
2610 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
2611 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
2612 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
2615 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
2618 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
2620 to your .guile init file.
2622 ** New define-module option: :replace
2624 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
2627 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
2628 for the core binding `format'.
2630 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
2632 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
2633 a prefix to all imported bindings.
2635 (define-module (foo)
2636 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
2638 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
2641 ** Conflicting generic functions can be automatically merged.
2643 When two imported bindings conflict and they are both generic
2644 functions, the two functions can now be merged automatically. This is
2645 activated with the 'duplicates' handler 'merge-generics'.
2647 ** New function: effective-version
2649 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
2650 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
2651 to the distribution" above.
2653 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
2655 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
2656 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
2658 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
2660 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
2661 instead of blocking and indicate failure.
2663 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
2665 The function 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
2666 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
2669 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
2671 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
2673 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
2675 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
2676 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
2677 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
2680 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
2681 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
2682 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
2683 'system-async-mark'.
2685 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
2686 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
2688 When a thread blocks on a mutex, a condition variable or is waiting
2689 for IO to be possible, it will still execute system asyncs. This can
2690 be used to interrupt such a thread by making it execute a 'throw', for
2693 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
2695 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
2696 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
2699 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
2700 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
2702 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
2703 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
2704 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
2705 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
2706 level for the current thread.
2708 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
2710 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
2712 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
2713 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
2716 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
2718 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
2720 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
2723 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
2725 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
2728 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
2729 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
2730 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
2732 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
2733 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
2734 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
2735 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
2746 ERROR: Numerical overflow
2748 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
2751 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
2753 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
2754 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
2755 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
2766 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
2768 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
2769 them is also done exactly, of course:
2774 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
2775 for exact arguments.
2777 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
2778 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
2780 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
2782 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
2783 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
2784 equal to a floating point number. For example:
2786 (inexact->exact 1.234)
2787 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
2789 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitly:
2791 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
2794 ** New function 'rationalize'.
2796 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
2797 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
2799 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
2802 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
2803 result when both its arguments are exact.
2805 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
2807 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
2808 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
2809 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
2811 ** Guile now has uninterned symbols.
2813 The new function 'make-symbol' will return an uninterned symbol. This
2814 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
2815 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
2817 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
2820 ** pretty-print has more options.
2822 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
2823 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
2824 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
2826 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
2828 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
2829 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
2830 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
2832 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
2834 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
2835 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
2837 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
2839 Change your code to use 'define-macro' or r5rs macros. Also, be aware
2840 that macro expansion will not be done during evaluation, but prior to
2843 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
2845 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
2846 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
2847 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
2848 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
2849 without the soft port blocking.
2851 ** Deprecated: undefine
2853 There is no replacement for undefine.
2855 ** The functions make-keyword-from-dash-symbol and keyword-dash-symbol
2856 have been discouraged.
2858 They are relics from a time where a keyword like #:foo was used
2859 directly as a Tcl option "-foo" and thus keywords were internally
2860 stored as a symbol with a starting dash. We now store a symbol
2863 Use symbol->keyword and keyword->symbol instead.
2865 ** The `cheap' debug option is now obsolete
2867 Evaluator trap calls are now unconditionally "cheap" - in other words,
2868 they pass a debug object to the trap handler rather than a full
2869 continuation. The trap handler code can capture a full continuation
2870 by using `call-with-current-continuation' in the usual way, if it so
2873 The `cheap' option is retained for now so as not to break existing
2874 code which gets or sets it, but setting it now has no effect. It will
2875 be removed in the next major Guile release.
2877 ** Evaluator trap calls now support `tweaking'
2879 `Tweaking' means that the trap handler code can modify the Scheme
2880 expression that is about to be evaluated (in the case of an
2881 enter-frame trap) or the value that is being returned (in the case of
2882 an exit-frame trap). The trap handler code indicates that it wants to
2883 do this by returning a pair whose car is the symbol 'instead and whose
2884 cdr is the modified expression or return value.
2886 * Changes to the C interface
2888 ** The functions scm_hash_fn_remove_x and scm_hashx_remove_x no longer
2889 take a 'delete' function argument.
2891 This argument makes no sense since the delete function is used to
2892 remove a pair from an alist, and this must not be configurable.
2894 This is an incompatible change.
2896 ** The GH interface is now subject to the deprecation mechanism
2898 The GH interface has been deprecated for quite some time but now it is
2899 actually removed from Guile when it is configured with
2900 --disable-deprecated.
2902 See the manual "Transitioning away from GH" for more information.
2904 ** A new family of functions for converting between C values and
2905 Scheme values has been added.
2907 These functions follow a common naming scheme and are designed to be
2908 easier to use, thread-safe and more future-proof than the older
2911 - int scm_is_* (...)
2913 These are predicates that return a C boolean: 1 or 0. Instead of
2914 SCM_NFALSEP, you can now use scm_is_true, for example.
2916 - <type> scm_to_<type> (SCM val, ...)
2918 These are functions that convert a Scheme value into an appropriate
2919 C value. For example, you can use scm_to_int to safely convert from
2922 - SCM scm_from_<type> (<type> val, ...)
2924 These functions convert from a C type to a SCM value; for example,
2925 scm_from_int for ints.
2927 There is a huge number of these functions, for numbers, strings,
2928 symbols, vectors, etc. They are documented in the reference manual in
2929 the API section together with the types that they apply to.
2931 ** New functions for dealing with complex numbers in C have been added.
2933 The new functions are scm_c_make_rectangular, scm_c_make_polar,
2934 scm_c_real_part, scm_c_imag_part, scm_c_magnitude and scm_c_angle.
2935 They work like scm_make_rectangular etc but take or return doubles
2938 ** The function scm_make_complex has been discouraged.
2940 Use scm_c_make_rectangular instead.
2942 ** The INUM macros have been deprecated.
2944 A lot of code uses these macros to do general integer conversions,
2945 although the macros only work correctly with fixnums. Use the
2946 following alternatives.
2948 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
2949 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
2950 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
2951 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
2953 SCM_VALIDATE_INUM_* -> Do not use these; scm_to_int, etc. will
2954 do the validating for you.
2956 ** The scm_num2<type> and scm_<type>2num functions and scm_make_real
2957 have been discouraged.
2959 Use the newer scm_to_<type> and scm_from_<type> functions instead for
2960 new code. The functions have been discouraged since they don't fit
2963 ** The 'boolean' macros SCM_FALSEP etc have been discouraged.
2965 They have strange names, especially SCM_NFALSEP, and SCM_BOOLP
2966 evaluates its argument twice. Use scm_is_true, etc. instead for new
2969 ** The macro SCM_EQ_P has been discouraged.
2971 Use scm_is_eq for new code, which fits better into the naming
2974 ** The macros SCM_CONSP, SCM_NCONSP, SCM_NULLP, and SCM_NNULLP have
2977 Use the function scm_is_pair or scm_is_null instead.
2979 ** The functions scm_round and scm_truncate have been deprecated and
2980 are now available as scm_c_round and scm_c_truncate, respectively.
2982 These functions occupy the names that scm_round_number and
2983 scm_truncate_number should have.
2985 ** The functions scm_c_string2str, scm_c_substring2str, and
2986 scm_c_symbol2str have been deprecated.
2988 Use scm_to_locale_stringbuf or similar instead, maybe together with
2991 ** New functions scm_c_make_string, scm_c_string_length,
2992 scm_c_string_ref, scm_c_string_set_x, scm_c_substring,
2993 scm_c_substring_shared, scm_c_substring_copy.
2995 These are like scm_make_string, scm_length, etc. but are slightly
2996 easier to use from C.
2998 ** The macros SCM_STRINGP, SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_STRING_LENGTH,
2999 SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, and SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH have been deprecated.
3001 They export too many assumptions about the implementation of strings
3002 and symbols that are no longer true in the presence of
3003 mutation-sharing substrings and when Guile switches to some form of
3006 When working with strings, it is often best to use the normal string
3007 functions provided by Guile, such as scm_c_string_ref,
3008 scm_c_string_set_x, scm_string_append, etc. Be sure to look in the
3009 manual since many more such functions are now provided than
3012 When you want to convert a SCM string to a C string, use the
3013 scm_to_locale_string function or similar instead. For symbols, use
3014 scm_symbol_to_string and then work with that string. Because of the
3015 new string representation, scm_symbol_to_string does not need to copy
3016 and is thus quite efficient.
3018 ** Some string, symbol and keyword functions have been discouraged.
3020 They don't fit into the uniform naming scheme and are not explicit
3021 about the character encoding.
3023 Replace according to the following table:
3025 scm_allocate_string -> scm_c_make_string
3026 scm_take_str -> scm_take_locale_stringn
3027 scm_take0str -> scm_take_locale_string
3028 scm_mem2string -> scm_from_locale_stringn
3029 scm_str2string -> scm_from_locale_string
3030 scm_makfrom0str -> scm_from_locale_string
3031 scm_mem2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symboln
3032 scm_mem2uninterned_symbol -> scm_from_locale_stringn + scm_make_symbol
3033 scm_str2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symbol
3035 SCM_SYMBOL_HASH -> scm_hashq
3036 SCM_SYMBOL_INTERNED_P -> scm_symbol_interned_p
3038 scm_c_make_keyword -> scm_from_locale_keyword
3040 ** The functions scm_keyword_to_symbol and sym_symbol_to_keyword are
3041 now also available to C code.
3043 ** SCM_KEYWORDP and SCM_KEYWORDSYM have been deprecated.
3045 Use scm_is_keyword and scm_keyword_to_symbol instead, but note that
3046 the latter returns the true name of the keyword, not the 'dash name',
3047 as SCM_KEYWORDSYM used to do.
3049 ** A new way to access arrays in a thread-safe and efficient way has
3052 See the manual, node "Accessing Arrays From C".
3054 ** The old uniform vector and bitvector implementations have been
3055 unceremoniously removed.
3057 This implementation exposed the details of the tagging system of
3058 Guile. Use the new C API explained in the manual in node "Uniform
3059 Numeric Vectors" and "Bit Vectors", respectively.
3061 The following macros are gone: SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE,
3062 SCM_UVECTOR_MAXLENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_UVECTOR_TAG,
3063 SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVECTOR_P, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE,
3064 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
3065 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_BITVECTOR_TAG,
3066 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVEC_REF, SCM_BITVEC_SET,
3069 ** The macros dealing with vectors have been deprecated.
3071 Use the new functions scm_is_vector, scm_vector_elements,
3072 scm_vector_writable_elements, etc, or scm_is_simple_vector,
3073 SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_REF, SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_SET, etc instead. See the
3074 manual for more details.
3076 Deprecated are SCM_VECTORP, SCM_VELTS, SCM_VECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
3077 SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_REF, SCM_VECTOR_SET, SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS.
3079 The following macros have been removed: SCM_VECTOR_BASE,
3080 SCM_SET_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_MAKE_VECTOR_TAG, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH,
3081 SCM_VELTS_AS_STACKITEMS, SCM_SETVELTS, SCM_GC_WRITABLE_VELTS.
3083 ** Some C functions and macros related to arrays have been deprecated.
3085 Migrate according to the following table:
3087 scm_make_uve -> scm_make_typed_array, scm_make_u8vector etc.
3088 scm_make_ra -> scm_make_array
3089 scm_shap2ra -> scm_make_array
3090 scm_cvref -> scm_c_generalized_vector_ref
3091 scm_ra_set_contp -> do not use
3092 scm_aind -> scm_array_handle_pos
3093 scm_raprin1 -> scm_display or scm_write
3095 SCM_ARRAYP -> scm_is_array
3096 SCM_ARRAY_NDIM -> scm_c_array_rank
3097 SCM_ARRAY_DIMS -> scm_array_handle_dims
3098 SCM_ARRAY_CONTP -> do not use
3099 SCM_ARRAY_MEM -> do not use
3100 SCM_ARRAY_V -> scm_array_handle_elements or similar
3101 SCM_ARRAY_BASE -> do not use
3103 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
3105 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which returns a pointer
3106 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
3108 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
3109 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
3110 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
3111 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
3113 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SCM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
3115 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
3116 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
3117 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
3119 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
3120 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
3122 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
3123 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
3124 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
3125 smob word. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
3127 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and re-entries.
3129 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
3130 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
3131 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
3132 prevent a potential memory leak:
3139 scm_dynwind_begin (0);
3141 mem = scm_malloc (100);
3142 scm_dynwind_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY);
3144 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
3145 SCM_DYNWIND_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless.
3152 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY, MEM will be freed by
3153 SCM_DYNWIND_END as well.
3157 For full documentation, see the node "Dynamic Wind" in the manual.
3159 ** New function scm_dynwind_free
3161 This function calls 'free' on a given pointer when a dynwind context
3162 is left. Thus the call to scm_dynwind_unwind_handler above could be
3163 replaced with simply scm_dynwind_free (mem).
3165 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
3166 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
3168 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
3170 ** New functions scm_dynwind_block_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs
3172 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
3173 scm_dynwind_block_asyncs in a 'dynwind context' (see above). Likewise for
3174 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs.
3176 ** The macros SCM_DEFER_INTS, SCM_ALLOW_INTS, SCM_REDEFER_INTS,
3177 SCM_REALLOW_INTS have been deprecated.
3179 They do no longer fulfill their original role of blocking signal
3180 delivery. Depending on what you want to achieve, replace a pair of
3181 SCM_DEFER_INTS and SCM_ALLOW_INTS with a dynwind context that locks a
3182 mutex, blocks asyncs, or both. See node "Critical Sections" in the
3185 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
3187 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
3188 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
3189 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
3191 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
3193 C code can now use scm_dynwind_current_<foo>_port in a 'dynwind
3194 context' (see above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
3196 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
3198 C code can now use scm_dynwind_fluid in a 'dynwind context' (see
3199 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
3201 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
3203 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
3204 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
3205 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
3207 ** The functions scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed.
3209 You should not have used them.
3211 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
3213 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
3214 private or renamed with a more suitable public name.
3216 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
3218 This macro is not intended for public use.
3220 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
3222 Use scm_is_true (scm_inexact_p (...)) instead.
3224 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
3226 Use scm_is_real instead.
3228 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
3230 Use scm_is_complex instead.
3232 ** Some preprocessor defines have been deprecated.
3234 These defines indicated whether a certain feature was present in Guile
3235 or not. Going forward, assume that the features are always present.
3237 The macros are: USE_THREADS, GUILE_ISELECT, READER_EXTENSIONS,
3238 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS, DYNAMIC_LINKING.
3240 The following macros have been removed completely: MEMOIZE_LOCALS,
3241 SCM_RECKLESS, SCM_CAUTIOUS.
3243 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
3245 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
3248 ** New function: scm_effective_version
3250 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
3251 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
3252 to the distribution" above.
3254 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
3256 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
3257 arguments are now passed directly:
3259 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
3261 This is an incompatible change.
3263 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
3265 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
3266 function in the init section.
3268 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
3270 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
3272 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
3273 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
3274 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
3275 stays roughly constant.
3277 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
3278 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
3279 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
3280 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
3281 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
3284 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
3285 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
3286 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
3287 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
3289 For understanding the memory usage of a GUILE program, the routine
3290 gc-live-object-stats returns an alist containing the number of live
3291 objects for every type.
3294 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
3296 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
3298 ** The struct scm_cell type has been renamed to scm_t_cell
3300 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
3301 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
3302 initializes a new cell (see below).
3304 ** New functions for memory management
3306 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
3307 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
3308 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
3309 cause aborts in long running programs.
3311 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
3312 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
3314 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
3315 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
3316 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
3317 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
3318 details and for upgrading instructions.
3320 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
3321 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
3322 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
3324 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
3326 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
3327 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
3328 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
3329 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
3330 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
3332 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
3333 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
3334 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
3336 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
3337 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
3339 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
3341 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old
3342 macros had problems because with them allocation and initialization
3343 was separated and the GC could sometimes observe half initialized
3344 cells. Only careful coding by the user of SCM_NEWCELL and
3345 SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
3347 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
3349 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
3352 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
3354 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
3356 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
3358 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or to define macros in
3359 Scheme, using 'define-macro'.
3361 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
3363 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
3364 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
3366 ** The names scm_internal_select, scm_thread_sleep, and
3367 scm_thread_usleep have been discouraged.
3369 Use scm_std_select, scm_std_sleep, scm_std_usleep instead.
3371 ** The GC can no longer be blocked.
3373 The global flags scm_gc_heap_lock and scm_block_gc have been removed.
3374 The GC can now run (partially) concurrently with other code and thus
3375 blocking it is not well defined.
3377 ** Many definitions have been removed that were previously deprecated.
3379 scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify,
3380 scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
3381 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2,
3382 scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY,
3383 SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED,
3384 scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL,
3385 SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL,
3386 SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG,
3387 SCM_NUM_SIGS, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
3388 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
3389 scm_eval2, root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
3390 SCM_RWSTRINGP, scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring,
3391 scm_tc7_substring, sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP,
3392 SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
3393 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
3394 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
3395 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
3396 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
3397 scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern, scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
3398 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
3399 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
3400 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
3401 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
3402 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
3403 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
3404 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
3405 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
3406 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
3407 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
3408 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable,
3409 SCM_CHARS, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH.
3411 * Changes to bundled modules
3415 Using the (ice-9 debug) module no longer automatically switches Guile
3416 to use the debugging evaluator. If you want to switch to the
3417 debugging evaluator (which is needed for backtrace information if you
3418 hit an error), please add an explicit "(debug-enable 'debug)" to your
3419 code just after the code to use (ice-9 debug).
3422 Changes since Guile 1.4:
3424 * Changes to the distribution
3426 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
3428 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
3430 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
3431 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
3432 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
3433 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
3434 indicate major changes in Guile.
3436 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
3437 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
3438 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
3439 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
3441 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
3442 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
3443 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
3444 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
3445 micro version number.
3447 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
3449 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
3451 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
3452 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
3454 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
3456 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
3457 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
3458 See INSTALL and README for more information.
3460 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
3462 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
3463 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
3464 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
3467 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
3469 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
3472 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
3474 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
3475 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
3477 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
3479 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
3480 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
3483 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
3485 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
3488 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
3491 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
3493 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
3495 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
3496 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
3497 open-output-string, get-output-string.
3499 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
3501 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
3503 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
3506 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
3508 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
3510 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
3512 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
3513 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
3514 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
3516 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
3518 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
3520 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
3521 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
3530 See README there for more info.
3532 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
3533 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
3536 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
3538 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
3540 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
3542 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
3543 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
3544 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
3546 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
3548 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
3549 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
3550 to be named `and-let*', of course.
3552 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
3553 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
3555 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
3558 (oop goops describe)
3560 (oop goops active-slot)
3561 (oop goops composite-slot)
3563 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
3564 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
3565 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
3567 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
3569 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
3570 in the default environment:
3572 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
3573 %read-line write-line
3575 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
3576 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
3578 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
3580 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
3583 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
3584 can be used for similar functionality.
3586 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
3588 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
3589 it defines two procedures:
3591 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
3593 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
3594 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
3595 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
3598 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
3600 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
3601 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
3602 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
3603 write large strings.
3605 ** New module (ice-9 match)
3607 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
3608 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
3610 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
3612 for complete documentation.
3614 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
3616 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
3617 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
3618 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
3619 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
3621 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
3622 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
3626 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
3627 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
3628 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
3631 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
3634 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
3635 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
3637 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
3638 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
3641 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
3644 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
3646 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
3648 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3650 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
3652 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
3653 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
3654 Scheme programs easier.
3656 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
3657 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
3658 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
3659 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
3660 `cond-expand' when using this option.
3663 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
3664 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
3666 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
3669 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
3671 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
3672 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
3673 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
3676 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3678 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
3680 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
3681 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
3682 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
3683 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
3684 was also ASCII, for example.
3686 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
3688 tag - no replacement.
3689 fseek - replaced by seek.
3690 list* - replaced by cons*.
3692 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
3696 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
3697 (define m (make-safe-module))
3698 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
3699 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
3700 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
3702 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
3704 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
3705 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
3706 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
3708 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
3710 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
3711 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
3712 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
3713 from the issues related to the module system.
3715 *** New function: load-extension
3717 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
3719 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
3721 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
3722 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
3723 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
3725 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
3727 This function registers a initialization function for use by
3728 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
3729 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
3730 support dynamic linking).
3732 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
3734 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
3735 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
3736 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
3737 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
3740 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
3741 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
3742 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
3743 library and initialize it explicitly.
3745 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
3746 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
3748 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
3750 (define-module (foo bar))
3752 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
3754 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
3756 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
3757 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
3759 (scheme-report-environment 5)
3760 (null-environment 5)
3761 (interaction-environment)
3767 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
3769 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
3770 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
3771 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
3772 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
3774 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
3775 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
3776 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
3777 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
3778 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
3779 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
3780 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
3781 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
3782 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
3783 one eval to the next.
3785 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
3786 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
3787 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
3788 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
3789 subforms are at the top-level as well.
3791 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
3792 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
3793 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
3794 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
3795 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
3796 used in a lexical environment.
3798 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
3799 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
3800 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
3801 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
3802 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
3803 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
3805 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
3807 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
3808 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
3809 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
3810 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
3811 new facilities: selection and renaming.
3813 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
3814 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
3815 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
3817 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
3818 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
3820 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
3821 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
3822 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
3824 (remove-if . zonk-y)
3825 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
3827 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
3828 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
3829 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
3830 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
3833 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
3834 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
3835 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
3836 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
3838 (remove-if . zonk-y)
3839 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
3840 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
3842 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
3843 ;; and all four by upcasing.
3844 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
3845 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
3846 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
3848 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
3850 (remove-if . zonk-y)
3851 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
3852 :renamer upcase-symbol))
3854 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
3855 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
3856 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
3858 See manual for more info.
3860 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
3862 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
3863 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
3864 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
3866 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
3868 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
3869 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
3870 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
3872 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
3873 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
3874 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
3875 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
3877 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
3879 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
3880 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
3882 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
3883 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
3884 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
3885 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
3886 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
3889 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
3890 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
3891 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
3892 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
3893 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
3894 successful and #f if it wasn't.
3896 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
3897 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
3898 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
3899 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
3900 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
3902 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
3903 objects are usually permanent.
3905 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
3906 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
3908 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
3910 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
3911 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
3914 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
3918 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
3923 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
3925 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
3926 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
3927 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
3928 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
3930 ** New function `make-object-property'
3932 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
3933 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
3937 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
3938 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
3942 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
3943 source properties eventually.
3945 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
3947 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
3948 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
3949 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
3951 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
3952 will be removed in the next release.
3954 ** New define-module option: pure
3956 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
3961 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
3964 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
3966 Export names NAME1 ...
3968 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
3969 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
3973 (define-module (foo)
3975 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
3978 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
3983 ** New function: object->string OBJ
3985 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
3987 ** New function: port? X
3989 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
3990 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
3992 ** New function: file-port?
3994 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
3996 ** New function: port-for-each proc
3998 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
3999 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
4000 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
4001 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
4002 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
4004 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
4006 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
4007 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
4008 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
4009 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
4010 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
4013 ** New function: close-fdes fd
4015 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
4016 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
4017 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
4018 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
4021 ** New function: crypt password salt
4023 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
4026 ** New function: chroot path
4028 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
4030 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
4032 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
4035 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
4037 Get or set the priority of the running process.
4039 ** New function: getpass prompt
4041 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
4044 ** New function: flock file operation
4046 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
4048 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
4050 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
4053 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
4055 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
4056 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
4057 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
4058 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
4059 of the temporary file.
4061 ** New function: open-input-string string
4063 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
4064 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
4065 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
4067 ** New function: open-output-string
4069 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
4070 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
4072 ** New function: get-output-string
4074 Return the contents of an output string port.
4076 ** New function: identity
4078 Return the argument.
4080 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
4081 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
4083 ** New function: inet-pton family address
4085 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
4086 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
4087 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
4090 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
4091 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
4093 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
4095 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
4096 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
4097 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
4100 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
4101 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
4102 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
4106 Use `identity' instead.
4112 ** Deprecated: return-it
4116 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
4118 Use `string-length' instead.
4120 ** Deprecated: flags
4122 Use `logior' instead.
4124 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
4126 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
4127 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
4128 port-for-each is more flexible.
4130 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
4131 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
4132 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
4134 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
4136 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
4138 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
4140 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
4142 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
4144 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
4145 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
4147 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
4148 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
4150 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
4151 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
4153 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
4155 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
4156 Removed function: builtin-bindings
4158 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
4159 Use module system operations for all variables.
4161 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
4163 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
4166 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
4168 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
4169 The following bugs have been fixed:
4171 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
4172 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
4175 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
4176 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
4177 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
4179 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
4180 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
4182 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
4183 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
4186 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
4187 The expansion used to be like so:
4189 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
4191 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
4193 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
4195 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
4196 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
4198 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
4200 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
4201 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
4202 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
4206 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
4207 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
4209 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
4214 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
4215 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
4217 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
4218 and `d', other keywords allowed.
4219 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
4221 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
4224 * Changes to the C interface
4226 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
4228 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
4229 with "_t". What a concept.
4231 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
4233 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
4235 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
4239 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
4240 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
4242 *** C Functions removed
4244 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
4245 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
4246 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
4247 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
4248 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
4249 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
4250 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
4252 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
4254 Use scm_mem2string instead.
4256 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
4258 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
4260 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
4261 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
4263 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
4265 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
4268 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
4270 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
4272 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
4274 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
4275 Evaluation" in the manual.
4277 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
4279 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
4280 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
4282 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
4284 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
4285 Constructors" in the manual.
4287 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
4289 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
4290 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
4292 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
4294 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
4296 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
4297 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
4298 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
4300 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
4302 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
4304 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
4305 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
4306 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
4309 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
4311 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
4313 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
4314 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
4316 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
4318 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
4319 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
4320 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
4321 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
4323 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
4324 scm_primitive_property_ref
4325 scm_primitive_property_set_x
4326 scm_primitive_property_del_x
4328 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
4329 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
4331 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
4333 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
4334 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
4335 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
4336 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
4338 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
4340 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
4341 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
4342 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
4343 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
4344 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
4345 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
4346 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
4348 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
4349 scm_remember_upto_here
4351 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
4353 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
4355 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
4356 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
4358 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
4360 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
4362 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
4364 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
4366 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
4368 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
4369 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
4370 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
4371 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
4372 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
4373 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
4375 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
4377 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
4379 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
4380 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
4381 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
4383 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
4385 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
4386 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
4387 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
4389 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
4391 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
4392 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
4395 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
4398 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
4399 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
4402 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
4404 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
4406 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
4408 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
4410 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
4412 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
4414 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
4415 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
4416 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
4417 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
4418 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
4419 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
4420 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
4421 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
4422 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
4423 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
4424 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
4425 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
4426 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
4427 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
4428 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
4430 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
4431 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
4432 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
4433 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
4434 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
4435 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
4436 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
4437 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
4438 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
4439 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
4440 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
4441 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
4442 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
4443 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
4444 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
4445 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
4446 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
4447 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
4448 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
4449 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
4450 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
4451 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
4452 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
4453 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
4454 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
4455 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
4456 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
4457 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
4458 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
4460 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
4462 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
4464 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
4465 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
4467 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
4469 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
4471 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
4473 Use scm_string_hash instead.
4475 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
4477 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
4479 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
4481 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
4483 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
4486 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
4487 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
4489 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
4491 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
4493 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
4495 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
4497 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
4499 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
4501 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
4503 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
4506 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
4508 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
4510 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
4512 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
4513 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
4515 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
4516 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
4518 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
4520 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
4521 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
4522 scm_module_define, scm_define.
4524 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
4526 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
4528 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
4529 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
4531 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
4532 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
4533 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
4534 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
4536 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
4537 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
4538 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
4540 Use the new ones from above instead.
4542 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
4544 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
4545 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
4546 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
4548 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
4549 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
4551 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
4552 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
4555 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
4556 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
4558 Use the new functions instead.
4560 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
4563 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
4565 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
4567 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
4570 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
4572 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
4575 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
4577 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
4580 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
4581 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
4582 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
4584 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
4586 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
4587 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
4589 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
4590 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
4591 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
4592 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
4595 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
4597 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
4598 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
4599 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
4600 inexact for an exact.
4602 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
4603 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
4604 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
4607 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
4608 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
4609 accept an inexact argument.
4611 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
4612 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
4614 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
4617 ** New number validation macros:
4618 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
4622 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
4624 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
4625 scm_unprotect_object.
4627 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
4629 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
4631 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
4634 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
4636 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
4640 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
4642 * Changes to the distribution
4644 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
4646 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
4647 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
4648 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
4649 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
4650 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
4651 obtain these programs.
4652 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
4653 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
4655 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
4656 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
4657 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
4658 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
4659 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
4661 However, this approach means that minor differences between
4662 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
4663 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
4664 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
4668 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
4671 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
4672 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
4673 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
4674 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
4676 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
4678 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
4680 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
4681 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
4683 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
4684 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
4686 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
4687 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
4689 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
4690 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
4691 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
4692 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
4694 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
4696 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
4700 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
4701 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
4703 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
4705 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
4706 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
4708 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
4709 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
4710 number of objects of that kind.
4712 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
4714 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
4715 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
4716 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
4717 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
4718 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
4720 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
4722 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
4724 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
4726 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
4729 ** New module (ice-9 time)
4731 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
4733 ** New module (ice-9 history)
4735 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
4737 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4739 ** New command line option --debug
4741 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
4743 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
4745 ** New help facility
4747 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
4748 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
4749 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
4750 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
4751 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
4752 (help) gives this text
4754 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
4755 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
4757 Examples: (help help)
4759 (help "output-string")
4761 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
4763 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
4765 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
4766 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
4769 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
4770 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
4771 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
4774 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
4775 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
4776 use absolute filenames when possible.
4778 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
4779 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
4780 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
4783 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
4785 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
4786 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
4787 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
4788 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
4790 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
4792 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
4794 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
4795 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
4796 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
4798 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
4799 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
4800 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
4802 (read-enable 'positions)
4803 (debug-enable 'debug)
4805 ** Backtraces in scripts
4807 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
4811 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
4813 at the top of the script.
4815 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
4816 The second enables backtraces.)
4818 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
4820 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
4821 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
4822 substantially faster than before.
4824 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
4825 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
4827 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
4828 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
4830 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
4832 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
4833 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
4834 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
4836 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
4837 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
4838 when this hook is run in the future.
4840 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
4841 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
4843 ** Improvements to garbage collector
4845 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
4846 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
4849 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
4850 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
4851 more and more memory for certain programs.)
4853 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
4854 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
4856 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
4857 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
4859 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
4860 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
4861 in order not to need further allocation.)
4863 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
4866 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
4867 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
4868 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
4869 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
4871 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
4873 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
4876 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
4878 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
4881 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
4882 GC in percent of total heap size
4885 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
4886 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
4888 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
4890 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
4891 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
4893 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
4895 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
4896 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
4898 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
4900 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
4901 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
4905 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
4906 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
4908 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
4910 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4912 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
4914 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
4916 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
4918 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
4919 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
4921 (simple-format port message . args)
4922 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
4923 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
4924 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
4925 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
4926 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
4927 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
4928 Does not add a trailing newline."
4930 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
4932 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
4933 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
4935 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
4936 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
4938 ** Deprecated: list*
4940 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
4942 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
4944 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
4945 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
4947 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
4948 is returned as result.
4950 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
4952 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
4954 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
4956 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
4957 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
4960 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
4962 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
4964 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
4965 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
4967 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4969 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
4971 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
4973 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4975 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
4977 Thanks to Greg Badros!
4979 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
4981 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
4982 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
4983 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
4985 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
4988 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
4990 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
4991 the readability of argument checking.
4993 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
4995 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
4997 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
4999 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
5000 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
5001 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
5002 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
5003 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
5004 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
5005 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
5007 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
5009 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
5011 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
5012 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
5014 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
5016 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
5017 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
5020 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
5022 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
5023 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
5024 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
5026 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
5027 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
5028 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
5030 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
5031 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
5032 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
5033 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
5034 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
5035 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
5036 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
5038 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
5039 scm_end_input (object);
5040 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
5041 ptob->flush (object);
5043 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
5044 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
5047 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
5049 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
5051 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
5052 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
5053 removed in a future version.
5055 ** The format of error message strings has changed
5057 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
5058 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
5059 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
5060 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
5062 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
5063 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
5065 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
5068 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
5070 in your configure.in.
5072 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
5077 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
5083 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
5085 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
5089 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
5090 (define make-message string-append)
5092 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
5094 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
5098 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
5103 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
5107 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
5109 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
5110 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
5112 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
5114 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
5115 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
5116 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
5117 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
5118 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
5119 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
5121 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
5122 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
5123 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
5125 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
5126 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
5127 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
5130 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
5131 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
5132 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
5133 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
5134 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
5136 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
5137 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
5138 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
5139 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
5140 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
5141 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
5142 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
5144 Destructors are not yet implemented.
5146 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
5147 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
5148 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
5150 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
5151 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
5152 KEY in the calling thread.
5154 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
5155 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
5156 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
5157 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
5158 associated with the key.
5160 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
5162 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
5163 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
5165 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
5167 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
5168 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
5169 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
5171 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
5173 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
5174 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
5176 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
5178 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
5180 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
5181 returned is undefined.
5183 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
5184 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
5185 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
5187 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
5188 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
5189 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
5191 ** New C level GC hooks
5193 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
5195 scm_before_gc_c_hook
5198 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
5199 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
5200 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
5202 scm_before_mark_c_hook
5203 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
5204 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
5206 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
5207 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
5210 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
5212 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
5213 allocation parameters
5215 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
5216 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
5217 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
5221 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
5222 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
5223 scm_default_max_segment_size
5225 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
5227 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
5228 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
5230 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
5232 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
5233 object and count on the object being protected until
5234 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
5236 The functions also have better time complexity.
5238 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
5239 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
5240 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
5241 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
5242 are no longer needed.
5244 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
5246 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
5247 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
5248 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
5249 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
5251 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
5253 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
5255 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
5257 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
5258 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
5259 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
5260 until this issue has been settled.
5262 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
5264 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
5266 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
5269 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
5271 * Changes to system call interfaces:
5273 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
5274 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
5275 descriptors were checked.
5277 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
5278 atomically written to a pipe.
5280 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
5281 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
5282 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
5283 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
5284 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
5285 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
5286 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
5289 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
5290 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
5291 is changed without calling tzset.
5293 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
5295 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
5296 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
5297 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
5299 (define write-network-long
5300 (lambda (value port)
5301 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
5302 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
5303 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
5305 (define read-network-long
5307 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
5308 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
5309 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
5311 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
5312 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
5314 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
5315 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
5316 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
5317 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
5319 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
5320 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
5321 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
5322 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
5326 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
5328 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5332 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
5333 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
5334 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
5340 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
5341 for a description of available commands.
5343 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
5344 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
5345 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
5347 (debug-enable 'backwards)
5349 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
5350 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
5352 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
5354 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
5356 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
5357 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
5358 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
5359 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
5360 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
5361 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
5364 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
5366 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
5367 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
5368 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
5369 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
5371 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
5372 the file and should not be affected by this change.
5374 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
5376 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5378 ** Readline support has changed again.
5380 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
5381 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
5382 to activate readline is now
5384 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
5387 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
5389 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
5390 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
5391 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
5394 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
5395 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
5396 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
5399 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
5400 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
5401 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
5402 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
5403 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
5404 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
5406 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
5407 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
5409 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
5411 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
5412 object it receives is the same string passed to
5413 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
5414 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
5415 string, not the suffix.
5417 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
5418 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
5419 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
5421 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
5423 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
5424 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
5425 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
5426 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
5429 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
5431 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
5433 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
5434 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
5435 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
5436 appear from left to right.
5438 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
5441 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
5443 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
5444 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
5446 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
5450 *** New function: hook? OBJ
5452 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
5454 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
5456 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
5457 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
5458 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
5460 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
5462 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
5464 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
5466 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
5469 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
5471 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
5472 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
5473 mentioning it here anyway.
5475 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
5477 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
5478 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
5479 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
5480 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
5483 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
5485 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
5487 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
5489 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
5490 otherwise return #f.
5492 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
5494 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
5495 returned by `opendir'.
5497 ** New function: using-readline?
5499 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
5501 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
5503 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
5504 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
5506 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5508 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
5510 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
5511 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
5512 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
5514 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
5516 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
5517 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
5519 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
5521 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
5522 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
5523 documentation slots are not yet used.
5525 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
5527 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
5528 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
5529 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
5534 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
5535 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
5536 (string-append x y))
5538 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
5539 can also be used for concatenating strings.
5541 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
5542 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
5543 be made in a clean way.]
5545 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
5547 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
5549 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
5551 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
5552 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
5554 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
5556 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
5558 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
5560 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
5562 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
5563 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
5564 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
5565 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
5568 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
5570 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
5572 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
5574 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
5576 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
5577 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
5579 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
5581 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
5583 Evaluates the body of a special form.
5585 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
5587 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
5588 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
5589 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
5590 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
5591 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
5592 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
5594 This should not make any difference for most users.
5596 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
5598 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
5599 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
5601 *** New functions for applying generic functions
5603 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
5604 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
5605 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
5606 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
5607 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
5609 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
5611 It is now replaced by:
5613 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
5615 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
5616 binds a variable named NAME to it.
5618 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
5620 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
5621 This might change when we get the new module system.
5623 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
5627 Changes since Guile 1.3:
5629 * Changes to mailing lists
5631 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
5633 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
5636 * Changes to the distribution
5638 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
5640 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
5641 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
5642 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
5643 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
5644 you explicitly specify it.
5646 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
5647 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
5648 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
5649 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
5650 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
5653 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
5654 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
5655 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
5656 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
5658 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
5659 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
5660 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
5663 You can activate the readline support by issuing
5665 (use-modules (readline-activator))
5668 from your ".guile" file, for example.
5670 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5672 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
5673 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
5674 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
5675 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
5677 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
5678 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
5681 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5683 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
5684 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
5685 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
5686 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
5687 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
5688 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
5689 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
5690 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
5702 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
5703 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
5704 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
5705 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
5706 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
5711 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
5712 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
5720 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
5725 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
5726 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
5729 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
5730 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
5731 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
5732 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
5734 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
5736 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
5738 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
5739 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
5741 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
5743 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
5745 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
5746 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
5748 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
5751 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
5753 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
5755 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
5757 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
5759 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
5761 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
5763 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
5764 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
5765 when the hook was created.
5767 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
5768 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
5769 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
5770 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
5771 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
5772 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
5773 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
5774 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
5775 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
5777 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
5778 the dlopen family of functions.
5780 ** New function `provided?'
5782 - Function: provided? FEATURE
5783 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
5784 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
5785 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
5787 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
5789 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
5790 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
5791 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
5792 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
5795 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
5796 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
5797 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
5798 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
5800 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
5801 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
5802 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
5805 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
5806 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
5807 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
5808 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
5809 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
5810 but with the flag set.
5812 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
5814 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
5815 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
5817 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
5818 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
5819 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
5820 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
5821 available Scheme format implementations.
5823 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
5824 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
5825 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
5826 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
5827 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
5828 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
5829 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
5830 output is to the current error port if available by the
5831 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
5834 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
5835 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
5836 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
5837 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
5838 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
5839 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
5840 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
5841 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
5843 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
5844 be executed at a time.
5847 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
5849 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
5850 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
5851 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
5853 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
5854 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
5855 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
5856 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
5857 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
5858 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
5859 general form of a directive is:
5861 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
5863 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
5865 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
5867 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
5868 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
5869 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
5872 Any (print as `display' does).
5876 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
5880 S-expression (print as `write' does).
5884 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
5890 print number sign always.
5893 print comma separated.
5895 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
5901 print number sign always.
5904 print comma separated.
5906 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
5912 print number sign always.
5915 print comma separated.
5917 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
5923 print number sign always.
5926 print comma separated.
5928 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
5933 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
5937 print a number as a Roman numeral.
5940 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
5943 print a number as an ordinal English number.
5946 print a number as a cardinal English number.
5951 prints `y' and `ies'.
5954 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
5957 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
5962 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
5966 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
5969 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
5970 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
5972 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
5975 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
5976 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
5978 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
5981 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
5983 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
5985 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
5988 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
5990 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
5992 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
5995 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
5998 The sign appears before the padding.
6006 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
6008 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
6013 print N page separators.
6023 newline is ignored, white space left.
6026 newline is left, white space ignored.
6031 relative tabulation.
6037 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
6039 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
6042 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
6044 converts by `string-capitalize'.
6047 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
6050 converts by `string-upcase'.
6053 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
6055 jumps N arguments forward.
6058 jumps 1 argument backward.
6061 jumps N arguments backward.
6064 jumps to the 0th argument.
6067 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
6069 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
6070 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
6072 take argument from N.
6075 true test conditional.
6078 if-else-then conditional.
6084 default clause follows.
6087 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
6089 at most N iterations.
6092 args from next arg (a list of lists).
6095 args from the rest of arguments.
6098 args from the rest args (lists).
6109 aborts if N <= M <= K
6111 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
6114 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
6117 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
6123 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
6125 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
6127 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
6128 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
6129 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
6130 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
6131 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
6132 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
6136 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
6140 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
6146 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
6149 Print a `#\space' character
6151 print N `#\space' characters.
6154 Print a `#\tab' character
6156 print N `#\tab' characters.
6159 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
6160 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
6161 must be a positive decimal number.
6164 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
6165 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
6166 be processed by `read'.
6169 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
6170 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
6171 be processed by `read'.
6174 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
6177 prints format version.
6180 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
6181 and format it accordingly.
6183 *** Configuration Variables
6185 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
6186 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
6187 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
6188 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
6191 format:symbol-case-conv
6192 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
6193 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
6194 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
6195 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
6196 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
6198 format:iobj-case-conv
6199 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
6200 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
6203 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
6206 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
6212 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
6213 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
6214 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
6215 `format' padding style.
6218 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
6219 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
6220 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
6221 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
6225 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
6226 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
6227 directive parameters or modifiers)).
6230 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
6231 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
6232 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
6233 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
6234 parameters or modifiers)).
6237 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
6239 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
6241 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
6242 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
6244 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
6245 string-downcase! functions.
6247 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
6248 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
6250 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
6253 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
6256 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
6257 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
6259 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
6261 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
6262 the symbol had be read by `read'.
6264 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
6265 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
6266 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
6267 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
6268 would if STRING were input.
6270 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
6272 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
6273 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
6274 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
6275 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
6278 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
6280 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
6281 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
6284 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
6286 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
6287 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
6289 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
6290 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
6292 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
6293 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
6294 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
6295 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
6297 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
6298 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
6300 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
6301 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
6302 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
6304 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
6305 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
6307 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
6308 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
6309 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
6310 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
6311 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
6313 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
6314 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
6315 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
6316 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
6317 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
6318 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
6320 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
6321 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
6322 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
6325 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
6326 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
6327 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
6328 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
6329 the following grammar:
6330 ((apples (single-char #\a))
6331 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
6332 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
6333 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
6334 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
6335 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
6336 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
6337 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
6338 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
6339 last option in its combination)
6341 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
6342 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
6343 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
6344 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
6346 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
6347 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
6348 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
6350 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
6351 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
6352 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
6354 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
6355 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
6356 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
6357 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
6358 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
6359 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
6360 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
6361 ordinary argument strings.
6363 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
6364 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
6365 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
6366 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
6368 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
6369 as a list, associated with the empty list.
6371 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
6372 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
6373 - a required option is omitted
6374 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
6375 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
6376 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
6377 - an option predicate fails
6382 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
6385 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
6386 (verbose (required? #f)
6389 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
6390 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
6391 (predicate ,string?))))
6393 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
6394 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
6396 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
6397 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
6398 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
6399 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
6402 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
6404 It will be removed in a few releases.
6406 ** New syntax: lambda*
6407 ** New syntax: define*
6408 ** New syntax: define*-public
6409 ** New syntax: defmacro*
6410 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
6411 Guile now supports optional arguments.
6413 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
6414 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
6415 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
6416 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
6417 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
6419 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
6420 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
6421 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
6423 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
6425 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
6426 and examples for `lambda*':
6429 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
6431 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
6432 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
6433 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
6434 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
6435 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
6436 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
6437 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
6438 can be checked with the bound? macro.
6440 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
6442 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
6443 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
6444 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
6445 are given as keywords are bound to values.
6447 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
6448 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
6449 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
6450 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
6451 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
6452 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
6453 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
6454 and until the procedure is called.
6456 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
6458 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
6459 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
6460 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
6461 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
6462 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
6463 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
6464 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
6465 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
6466 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
6467 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
6469 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
6470 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
6471 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
6472 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
6475 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
6477 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
6478 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
6479 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
6480 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
6482 ** New syntax: and-let*
6483 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
6485 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
6486 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
6487 (<variable> <expression>)
6490 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
6491 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
6492 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
6495 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
6496 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
6497 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
6498 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
6499 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
6500 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
6501 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
6503 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
6504 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
6505 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
6506 shadow earlier bindings.
6508 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
6510 ** New sorting functions
6512 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
6513 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
6514 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
6515 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
6517 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
6518 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
6521 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
6522 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
6523 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
6525 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
6526 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
6527 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
6528 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
6530 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
6531 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
6532 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
6533 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
6534 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
6537 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
6538 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
6539 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
6540 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
6541 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
6542 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
6544 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
6545 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
6546 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
6548 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
6549 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
6550 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
6553 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
6554 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
6555 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
6557 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
6558 Added for compatibility with scsh.
6560 ** New built-in random number support
6562 *** New function: random N [STATE]
6563 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
6564 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
6565 returned have a uniform distribution.
6567 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
6568 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
6569 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
6570 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
6571 effect of the `random' operation.
6573 *** New variable: *random-state*
6574 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
6575 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
6576 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
6577 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
6578 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
6581 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
6582 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
6583 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
6584 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
6585 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
6587 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
6588 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
6589 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
6590 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
6591 initialized using SEED.
6593 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
6594 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
6595 range between 0 and 1.
6597 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
6598 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
6599 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
6600 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
6601 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
6602 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
6603 or a uniform vector of doubles.
6605 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
6606 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
6607 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
6608 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
6609 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
6610 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
6612 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
6613 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
6614 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
6615 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
6617 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
6618 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
6619 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
6620 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
6622 *** New function: random:exp STATE
6623 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
6624 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
6626 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
6628 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
6631 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
6632 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
6635 ** New function: make-guardian
6636 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
6637 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
6638 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
6639 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
6640 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
6642 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
6643 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
6644 one object if at all.
6646 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
6647 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
6648 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
6650 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
6651 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
6652 read again in last-in first-out order.
6654 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
6655 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
6657 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
6659 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
6660 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
6661 file position is used.
6663 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
6664 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
6665 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
6667 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
6668 redefined using seek.
6670 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
6671 size is not supplied.
6673 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
6674 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
6676 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
6677 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
6679 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
6681 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
6682 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
6683 and returns the contents as a single string.
6685 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
6686 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
6687 lists in serial order.
6689 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
6690 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
6691 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
6693 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
6694 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
6695 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
6696 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
6698 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
6699 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
6700 and #f if an error occured.
6702 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
6704 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
6705 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
6706 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
6707 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
6709 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
6711 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
6714 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
6716 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
6719 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6723 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
6724 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
6726 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
6727 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
6731 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6733 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
6735 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
6736 binds a variable named NAME to it.
6738 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
6740 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
6741 might change when we get the new module system.
6743 ** The smob interface
6745 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
6746 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
6748 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
6750 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
6754 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
6755 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
6756 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
6757 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
6758 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
6759 will be freed by the default free function.
6761 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
6762 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
6763 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
6764 `scm_make_smob_type'.
6766 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
6767 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
6768 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
6769 `scm_make_smob_type'.
6771 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
6773 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
6774 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
6778 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
6779 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
6780 `scm_make_smob_type'.
6782 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
6783 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
6784 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
6785 `scm_make_smob_type'.
6787 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
6788 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
6789 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
6791 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
6792 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
6793 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
6794 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
6796 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
6797 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
6798 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
6800 *** scm_newptob has been removed
6804 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
6806 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
6807 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
6808 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
6810 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
6811 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
6812 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
6814 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
6815 a string port's buffer.
6817 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
6818 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
6819 function pointers which together define the current random number
6820 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
6821 number library functions.
6823 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
6826 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
6827 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
6830 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
6831 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
6833 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
6834 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
6836 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
6837 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
6840 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
6841 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
6842 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
6843 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
6845 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
6846 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
6847 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
6848 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
6849 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
6850 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
6851 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
6853 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
6854 by libguile and the application.
6856 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
6857 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
6858 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
6859 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
6861 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
6862 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
6864 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
6865 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
6866 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
6868 ** Random number library functions
6869 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
6870 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
6871 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
6873 The default random state is stored in:
6875 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
6876 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
6877 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
6882 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
6884 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
6885 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
6886 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
6887 isn't a random state.
6889 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
6890 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
6892 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
6893 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
6894 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
6895 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
6897 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
6898 Return 32 random bits.
6900 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
6901 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
6903 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
6904 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
6906 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
6907 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
6909 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
6910 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
6912 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
6913 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
6914 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
6918 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
6920 * Changes to the distribution
6922 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
6923 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
6924 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
6927 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
6928 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
6929 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
6931 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
6932 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
6933 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
6934 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
6937 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
6938 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
6939 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
6941 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
6943 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
6945 *** Function: batch-mode?
6947 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
6950 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
6952 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
6953 case has not been implemented.
6955 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
6956 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
6957 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
6960 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
6961 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
6963 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
6965 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
6967 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
6969 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
6970 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
6973 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
6974 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
6975 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
6976 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
6979 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
6981 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
6982 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
6983 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
6984 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
6985 find those libraries.
6987 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
6988 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
6991 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
6993 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
6994 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
6995 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
6996 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
6998 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
6999 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
7000 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
7004 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
7006 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
7007 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
7008 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
7011 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
7012 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
7013 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
7014 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
7016 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
7017 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
7020 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
7021 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
7022 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
7023 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
7024 compiler where to find the libraries.
7026 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
7027 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
7028 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
7030 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
7031 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
7032 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
7033 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
7034 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
7038 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
7040 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
7041 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
7042 internationalization support.
7044 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
7045 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
7046 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
7047 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
7048 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
7050 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
7051 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
7052 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
7053 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
7054 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
7056 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
7057 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
7058 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
7059 any GNU mirror site.
7061 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
7063 ** New function: add-history STRING
7064 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
7065 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
7066 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
7068 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
7070 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
7071 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
7072 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
7075 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
7076 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
7077 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
7079 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
7081 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
7084 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
7085 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
7088 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
7089 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
7090 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
7091 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
7092 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
7093 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
7095 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
7096 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
7097 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
7098 of the form mentioned above.
7100 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
7101 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
7102 returned in the special `rest' list.
7104 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
7105 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
7107 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
7109 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
7111 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
7113 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
7114 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
7115 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
7116 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
7117 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
7118 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
7119 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
7120 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
7123 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
7125 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
7127 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
7128 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
7131 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
7132 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
7133 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
7137 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
7138 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
7139 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
7140 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
7141 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
7142 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
7143 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
7144 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
7147 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
7149 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
7150 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
7151 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
7153 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
7155 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
7156 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
7158 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
7159 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
7160 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
7162 Why do we have this function?
7163 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
7164 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
7165 primitive, and display it differently, and
7166 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
7167 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
7170 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
7171 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
7174 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
7175 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
7176 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
7177 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
7179 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
7180 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
7183 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
7184 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
7186 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
7188 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
7189 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
7190 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
7191 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
7192 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
7193 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
7194 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
7197 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
7199 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
7200 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
7202 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
7203 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
7204 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
7205 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
7206 properly continue the print chain.
7208 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
7209 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
7210 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
7211 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
7212 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
7213 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
7214 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
7215 print-state, it is simply ignored.
7217 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
7218 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
7219 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
7220 safest to not check for these pairs.
7222 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
7223 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
7224 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
7225 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
7227 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
7229 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
7230 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
7232 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
7234 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
7236 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
7237 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
7238 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
7240 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
7241 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
7242 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
7244 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
7245 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
7246 the following functions and macros:
7248 Function: make-fluid
7250 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
7251 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
7252 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
7253 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
7254 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
7256 Function: fluid? OBJ
7258 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
7260 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
7261 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
7263 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
7264 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
7266 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
7268 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
7269 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
7270 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
7271 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
7272 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
7273 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
7274 modified by `with-fluids*'.
7276 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
7278 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
7279 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
7280 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
7281 should evaluate to a fluid.
7283 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
7285 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
7286 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
7287 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
7288 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
7289 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
7291 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
7294 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
7296 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
7298 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
7300 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
7303 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
7304 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
7305 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
7306 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
7307 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
7310 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
7311 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
7312 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
7314 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
7315 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
7316 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
7318 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
7319 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
7320 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
7321 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
7323 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
7324 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
7325 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
7326 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
7328 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
7329 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
7330 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
7331 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
7333 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
7334 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
7335 their revealed counts set to zero.
7337 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
7338 Returns an integer file descriptor.
7340 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
7341 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
7343 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
7344 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
7346 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
7347 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
7348 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
7350 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
7351 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
7352 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
7354 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
7355 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
7356 default environment inherited by child processes.
7358 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
7359 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
7360 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
7362 The return value is unspecified.
7364 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
7365 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
7366 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
7367 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
7368 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
7370 The return value is unspecified.
7372 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
7373 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
7381 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
7382 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
7385 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
7388 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
7389 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
7390 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
7392 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
7393 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
7394 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
7395 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
7398 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
7399 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
7401 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
7402 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
7403 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
7404 the `environ' procedure.
7406 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
7407 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
7410 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
7411 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
7413 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
7414 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
7415 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
7416 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
7418 *** procedure: times
7419 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
7420 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
7421 return a selected component:
7424 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
7428 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
7431 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
7435 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
7436 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
7440 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
7441 terminated child processes.
7443 ** Removed: list-length
7444 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
7445 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
7447 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
7449 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
7451 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
7453 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
7454 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
7455 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
7456 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
7458 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
7459 extra complexity it introduces.
7461 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
7462 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
7464 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
7465 variable to any non-empty value.
7467 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
7468 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
7470 * Changes to the gh_ interface
7472 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
7473 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
7475 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
7477 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
7478 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
7480 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
7482 ** vector handling routines
7484 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
7485 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
7486 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
7487 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
7488 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
7490 ** pair and list routines
7492 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
7495 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
7497 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
7500 * Changes to the scm_ interface
7502 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
7504 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
7505 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
7506 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
7507 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
7508 site-specific initialization code.
7510 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
7511 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
7512 initialization processes.
7514 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
7515 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
7516 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
7517 initialized properly.
7519 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
7520 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
7521 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
7523 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
7524 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
7525 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
7526 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
7527 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
7529 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
7531 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
7532 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
7533 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
7534 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
7535 objects the smob refers to get marked.
7537 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
7538 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
7539 which look like this:
7542 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
7544 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
7545 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
7548 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
7549 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
7552 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
7554 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
7555 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
7556 you will need to change your functions slightly.
7558 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
7559 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
7560 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
7561 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
7562 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
7564 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
7565 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
7567 int (*free) (SCM port);
7568 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
7569 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
7570 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
7574 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
7575 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
7576 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
7578 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
7581 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
7582 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
7583 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
7585 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
7586 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
7587 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
7590 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
7594 struct timeval *timeout);
7596 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
7597 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
7598 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
7599 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
7600 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
7601 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
7603 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
7604 scm_catch_body_t body,
7606 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
7609 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
7610 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
7611 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
7612 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
7613 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
7614 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
7616 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
7618 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
7621 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
7622 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
7623 spawning threads from application C code.
7625 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
7626 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
7627 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
7628 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
7629 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
7630 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
7632 ** Removed functions:
7634 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
7635 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
7637 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
7639 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
7640 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
7642 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
7644 ** mbstrings are now removed
7646 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
7647 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
7649 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
7651 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
7652 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
7653 their new names and arguments:
7655 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
7656 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
7657 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
7658 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
7661 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
7663 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
7665 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
7668 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
7670 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
7671 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
7672 pass a #f arg to catch.
7674 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
7676 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
7677 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
7680 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
7681 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
7682 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
7683 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
7684 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
7685 reclaim its storage.
7687 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
7688 worrying that some other function you call will call
7689 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
7690 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
7691 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
7692 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
7695 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
7697 * Changes to the distribution
7699 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
7700 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
7703 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
7704 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
7706 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
7707 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
7709 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
7711 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
7712 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
7713 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
7715 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
7717 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
7718 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
7719 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
7720 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
7721 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
7722 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
7724 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
7725 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
7726 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
7729 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
7730 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
7731 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
7732 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
7734 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
7735 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
7736 libraries to your link command:
7738 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
7739 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
7740 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
7741 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
7743 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
7744 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
7745 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
7747 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
7749 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
7750 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
7753 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
7755 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
7756 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
7757 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
7758 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
7759 searched is system dependent.
7761 (dynamic-object? VAL)
7763 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
7765 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
7767 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
7768 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
7770 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
7772 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
7773 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
7774 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
7775 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
7776 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
7779 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
7781 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
7782 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
7783 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
7784 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
7785 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
7787 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
7789 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
7790 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
7792 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
7794 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
7795 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
7796 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
7799 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
7801 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
7802 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
7803 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
7804 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
7806 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
7807 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
7809 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
7811 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
7812 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
7814 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
7816 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
7817 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
7825 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
7827 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
7828 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
7829 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
7830 a more informative way.
7832 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
7833 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
7834 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
7835 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
7836 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
7837 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
7839 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
7840 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
7843 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
7844 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
7845 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
7848 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
7849 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
7850 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
7851 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
7852 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
7853 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
7855 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
7856 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
7857 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
7858 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
7861 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
7862 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
7863 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
7864 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
7865 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
7866 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
7868 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
7869 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
7870 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
7871 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
7872 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
7874 *** regexp functions
7876 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
7877 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
7878 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
7880 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
7881 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
7882 with SCSH regular expressions.
7884 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
7885 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
7886 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
7887 position of STR at which to begin matching.
7889 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
7890 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
7891 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
7892 `string-match' returns `#f'.
7894 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
7895 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
7896 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
7897 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
7898 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
7899 match strings against the compiled regexp.
7901 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
7902 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
7903 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
7904 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
7905 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
7907 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
7909 **** Constant: regexp/extended
7910 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
7911 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
7912 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
7914 **** Constant: regexp/icase
7915 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
7916 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
7918 **** Constant: regexp/newline
7919 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
7921 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
7924 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
7925 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
7926 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
7928 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
7929 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
7930 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
7932 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
7933 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
7934 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
7935 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
7936 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
7939 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
7941 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
7942 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
7943 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
7944 used when different portions of a string are passed to
7945 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
7946 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
7948 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
7949 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
7950 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
7952 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
7953 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
7956 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
7957 and replace them with the contents of another string.
7959 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
7960 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
7961 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
7962 may be one of the following arguments:
7964 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
7966 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
7968 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
7969 the regexp match is written.
7971 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
7972 following the regexp match is written.
7974 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
7975 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
7978 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
7979 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
7980 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
7981 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
7982 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
7983 which should be matched against this regular expression.
7985 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
7988 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
7989 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
7990 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
7991 written out to PORT.
7993 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
7994 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
7995 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
7996 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
7997 will return after processing a single match.
7999 *** Match Structures
8001 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
8002 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
8003 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
8004 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
8005 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
8006 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
8009 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
8010 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
8011 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
8012 information about the original target string that was matched against a
8013 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
8015 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
8016 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
8017 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
8019 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
8020 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
8021 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
8022 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
8023 number N did not match, return `#f'.
8025 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
8026 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
8028 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
8029 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
8031 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
8032 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
8034 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
8035 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
8037 **** Function: match:count MATCH
8038 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
8039 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
8040 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
8042 **** Function: match:string MATCH
8043 Return the original TARGET string.
8045 *** Backslash Escapes
8047 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
8048 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
8049 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
8050 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
8051 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
8052 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
8054 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
8055 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
8056 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
8057 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
8058 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
8059 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
8060 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
8061 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
8063 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
8064 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
8065 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
8066 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
8067 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
8068 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
8069 each match a single backslash in the target string.
8071 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
8072 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
8073 return the resulting string.
8075 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
8076 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
8077 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
8078 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
8079 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
8080 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
8081 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
8082 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
8083 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
8084 translated to the single character `*'.
8086 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
8087 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
8088 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
8089 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
8090 consecutive backslashes:
8092 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
8094 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
8095 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
8096 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
8098 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
8099 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
8100 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
8101 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
8102 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
8103 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
8105 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
8107 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
8108 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
8109 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
8110 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
8111 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
8112 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
8113 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
8114 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
8115 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
8116 cumbersome escape syntax.
8118 * Changes to the gh_ interface
8120 * Changes to the scm_ interface
8122 * Changes to system call interfaces:
8124 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
8127 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
8129 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
8131 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
8134 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
8135 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
8136 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
8137 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
8138 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
8140 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
8141 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
8142 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
8143 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
8144 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
8145 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
8146 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
8149 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
8150 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
8151 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
8154 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
8155 `force-output' on every port open for output.
8157 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
8158 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
8159 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
8160 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
8161 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
8162 installed, you can say:
8164 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
8167 * Changes to the scm_ interface
8169 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
8170 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
8171 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
8172 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
8173 new dynamic roots and threads.
8176 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
8178 * Changes to the distribution.
8180 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
8182 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
8183 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
8184 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
8185 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
8186 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
8187 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
8188 programming language. These are packaged together because the
8189 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
8191 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
8194 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
8195 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
8200 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
8202 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
8203 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
8205 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
8206 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
8207 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
8208 the (command-line) function.
8209 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
8210 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
8211 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
8213 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
8214 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
8215 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
8216 command line arguments
8217 -ds do -s script at this point
8218 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
8219 -h, --help display this help and exit
8220 -v, --version display version information and exit
8221 \ read arguments from following script lines
8223 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
8224 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
8226 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
8229 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
8233 (main (command-line))
8235 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
8237 ekko a speckled gecko
8239 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
8240 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
8241 following list of command-line arguments:
8243 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
8245 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
8246 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
8247 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
8248 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
8249 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
8251 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
8253 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
8255 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
8256 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
8259 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
8260 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
8261 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
8262 SCSH) for circumventing them.
8264 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
8265 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
8266 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
8267 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
8269 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
8273 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
8277 If the user invokes this script as follows:
8279 ekko a speckled gecko
8281 Unix expands this into
8283 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
8285 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
8286 read from the second line of the script, producing:
8288 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
8290 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
8291 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
8293 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
8294 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
8295 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
8296 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
8297 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
8298 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
8299 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
8300 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
8301 it only terminates the argument list.)
8302 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
8303 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
8304 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
8305 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
8306 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
8307 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
8308 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
8309 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
8311 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
8313 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
8314 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
8315 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
8316 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
8317 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
8319 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
8320 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
8321 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
8323 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
8325 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
8326 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
8327 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
8328 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
8331 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
8332 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
8333 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
8335 * Changes to Scheme functions
8337 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
8338 and disabled by default.
8340 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
8341 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
8342 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
8343 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
8345 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
8347 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
8349 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
8350 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
8352 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
8353 (read-set! keywords #f)
8355 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
8356 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
8357 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
8360 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
8361 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
8362 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
8365 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
8366 support for Scheme functions.
8368 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
8369 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
8370 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
8371 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
8374 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
8375 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
8376 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
8379 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
8380 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
8381 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
8384 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
8385 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
8386 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
8387 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
8388 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
8389 display the result as a prompt.
8390 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
8392 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
8393 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
8394 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
8397 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
8398 procedure of zero arguments.
8400 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
8401 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
8402 argument is bound in the current module.
8404 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
8405 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
8406 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
8407 public bindings into the current module.
8409 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
8410 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
8412 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
8413 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
8415 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
8416 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
8418 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
8419 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
8421 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
8422 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
8424 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
8425 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
8426 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
8427 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
8428 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
8430 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
8431 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
8432 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
8433 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
8435 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
8438 ** Changes to I/O functions
8440 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
8441 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
8442 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
8444 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
8445 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
8446 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
8448 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
8449 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
8451 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
8452 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
8453 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
8454 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
8456 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
8458 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
8459 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
8461 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
8462 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
8463 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
8464 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
8465 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
8468 'trim omit delimiter from result
8469 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
8470 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
8471 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
8473 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
8475 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
8476 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
8478 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
8479 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
8480 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
8481 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
8482 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
8484 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
8485 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
8486 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
8488 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
8489 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
8490 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
8491 above, and defaults to 'peek.
8493 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
8494 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
8496 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
8497 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
8499 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
8501 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
8502 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
8503 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
8504 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
8505 a delimiting character.
8506 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
8508 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
8509 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
8510 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
8511 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
8512 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
8513 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
8515 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
8516 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
8518 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
8519 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
8520 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
8522 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
8523 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
8524 the array to read and write.
8526 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
8527 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
8530 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
8532 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
8535 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
8536 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
8537 Values for COMMAND are:
8539 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
8540 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
8541 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
8542 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
8543 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
8544 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
8545 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
8546 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
8548 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
8550 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
8551 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
8552 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
8553 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
8554 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
8555 corresponding return set will be the same.
8557 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
8560 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
8561 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
8562 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
8563 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
8564 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
8565 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
8566 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
8567 special file being created.
8569 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
8570 clashing with various SCSH forks.
8572 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
8573 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
8574 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
8575 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
8576 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
8577 and originating address.
8579 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
8580 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
8581 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
8583 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
8586 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
8587 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
8590 (status:exit-val STATUS)
8591 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
8592 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
8593 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
8594 this function returns #f.
8596 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
8597 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
8598 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
8601 (status:term-sig STATUS)
8602 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
8603 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
8606 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
8607 a valid STATUS value.
8609 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
8611 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
8612 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
8614 Component Accessor Setter
8615 ========================= ============ ============
8616 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
8617 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
8618 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
8619 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
8620 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
8621 year tm:year set-tm:year
8622 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
8623 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
8624 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
8625 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
8626 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
8628 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
8629 describing the host system:
8632 ============================================== ================
8633 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
8634 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
8635 release level of the operating system utsname:release
8636 version level of the operating system utsname:version
8637 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
8639 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
8640 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
8641 system's user database:
8644 ====================== =================
8645 user name passwd:name
8646 user password passwd:passwd
8649 real name passwd:gecos
8650 home directory passwd:dir
8651 shell program passwd:shell
8653 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
8654 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
8655 system's group database:
8658 ======================= ============
8659 group name group:name
8660 group password group:passwd
8662 group members group:mem
8664 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
8665 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
8669 ========================= ===============
8670 official name of host hostent:name
8671 alias list hostent:aliases
8672 host address type hostent:addrtype
8673 length of address hostent:length
8674 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
8676 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
8677 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
8681 ========================= ===============
8682 official name of net netent:name
8683 alias list netent:aliases
8684 net number type netent:addrtype
8685 net number netent:net
8687 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
8688 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
8692 ========================= ===============
8693 official protocol name protoent:name
8694 alias list protoent:aliases
8695 protocol number protoent:proto
8697 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
8698 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
8702 ========================= ===============
8703 official service name servent:name
8704 alias list servent:aliases
8705 port number servent:port
8706 protocol to use servent:proto
8708 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
8709 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
8712 ======================================== ===============
8713 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
8714 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
8715 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
8716 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
8718 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
8719 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
8720 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
8722 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
8723 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
8725 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
8726 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
8728 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
8729 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
8731 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
8733 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
8735 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
8736 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
8737 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
8739 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
8740 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
8741 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
8742 return the remaining characters as a string.
8744 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
8745 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
8746 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
8748 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
8750 * Changes to the gh_ interface
8752 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
8755 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
8758 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
8759 and returns the array
8761 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
8762 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
8763 the user to interpret the data both ways.
8765 * Changes to the scm_ interface
8767 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
8768 symbol's value from C code:
8770 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
8771 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
8772 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
8773 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
8775 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
8776 without assigning them a value.
8778 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
8779 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
8780 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
8782 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
8783 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
8784 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
8786 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
8787 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
8789 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
8790 doesn't actually care about that.
8792 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
8793 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
8794 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
8796 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
8797 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
8798 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
8799 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
8800 which we have just created and initialized.
8802 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
8803 should one occur. We call it like this:
8804 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
8806 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
8807 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
8808 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
8809 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
8810 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
8811 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
8814 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
8815 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
8816 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
8817 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
8818 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
8819 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
8820 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
8823 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
8824 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
8825 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
8826 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
8827 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
8830 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
8831 scm_internal_catch, except:
8833 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
8834 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
8835 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
8836 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
8839 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
8840 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
8841 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
8843 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
8844 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
8845 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
8846 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
8849 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
8850 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
8851 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
8853 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
8854 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
8855 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
8856 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
8857 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
8859 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
8860 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
8861 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
8863 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
8864 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
8865 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
8867 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
8868 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
8870 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
8871 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
8872 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
8875 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
8876 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
8877 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
8878 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
8879 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
8880 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
8881 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
8884 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
8885 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
8887 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
8888 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
8889 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
8890 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
8891 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
8894 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
8895 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
8897 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
8898 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
8901 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
8902 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
8904 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
8907 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
8908 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
8909 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
8910 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
8911 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
8912 given the following arguments:
8914 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
8916 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
8918 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
8920 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
8923 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
8924 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
8925 command-line arguments.
8927 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
8928 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
8929 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
8930 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
8931 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
8932 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
8935 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
8938 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
8939 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
8941 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
8942 rearranged slightly. They are now:
8944 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
8945 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
8946 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
8947 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
8949 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
8950 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
8952 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
8953 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
8954 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
8955 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
8957 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
8958 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
8960 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
8961 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
8963 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
8965 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
8966 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
8967 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
8970 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
8971 returns a port instead of an FD object.
8973 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
8974 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
8979 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
8982 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
8984 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
8985 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
8986 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
8987 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
8989 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
8991 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
8993 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
8994 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
8995 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
8996 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
8997 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
8998 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
8999 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
9000 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
9001 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
9002 for more information.
9004 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
9005 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
9007 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
9008 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
9009 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
9010 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
9011 following two lines at the top of the file:
9013 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
9016 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
9017 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
9018 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
9020 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
9022 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
9024 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
9027 (display (car args))
9028 (if (pair? (cdr args))
9030 (loop (cdr args)))))
9033 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
9034 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
9035 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
9036 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
9037 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
9038 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
9042 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
9045 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
9048 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
9050 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
9051 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
9052 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
9053 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
9054 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
9057 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
9058 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
9059 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
9060 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
9061 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
9064 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
9067 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
9068 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
9069 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
9072 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
9073 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
9074 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
9076 to see a backtrace, and
9077 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
9078 to see them by default.
9082 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
9084 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
9086 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
9087 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
9090 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
9091 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
9092 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
9093 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
9096 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
9097 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
9098 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
9099 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
9100 functions which inspired them.
9102 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
9103 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
9107 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
9109 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
9111 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
9112 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
9115 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
9116 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
9117 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
9119 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
9120 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
9121 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
9122 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
9123 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
9125 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
9127 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
9128 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
9129 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
9132 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
9135 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
9137 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
9138 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
9139 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
9140 above should serve their purposes.
9142 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
9143 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
9144 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
9145 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
9147 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
9150 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
9151 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
9152 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
9153 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
9155 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
9156 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
9157 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
9158 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
9160 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
9161 for the `read' function.
9164 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
9165 to that of `integer?'.
9167 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
9168 use the R4RS names for these functions.
9170 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
9171 it simply returns the object's property list.
9173 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
9174 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
9175 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
9176 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
9178 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
9180 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
9183 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
9185 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
9186 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
9188 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
9190 void (*main_func) (),
9193 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
9194 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
9195 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
9196 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
9197 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
9199 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
9200 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
9201 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
9202 know which arguments have been processed.
9204 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
9205 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
9206 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
9207 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
9208 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
9210 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
9211 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
9212 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
9213 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
9214 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
9215 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
9216 people from making that mistake.
9218 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
9219 convenient ways to override these when desired.
9221 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
9223 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
9227 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
9230 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
9231 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
9232 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
9233 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
9236 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
9237 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
9238 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
9239 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
9242 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
9243 have been added to the Guile library.
9245 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
9246 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
9247 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
9250 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
9251 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
9252 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
9254 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
9255 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
9256 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
9257 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
9258 argument from the list.
9261 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
9264 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
9265 null-terminated string, and returns it.
9267 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
9268 to a Scheme port object.
9270 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
9271 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
9276 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
9278 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
9279 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
9280 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
9281 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
9282 code as a special datatype.
9284 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
9285 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
9286 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
9287 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
9288 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
9291 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
9292 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
9293 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
9294 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
9295 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
9297 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
9300 Copyright information:
9302 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
9304 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
9305 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
9306 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
9307 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
9309 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
9310 of this document, or of portions of it,
9311 under the above conditions, provided also that they
9312 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
9317 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"