1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
7 Each release reports the NEWS in the following sections:
9 * Changes to the distribution
10 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
11 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
12 * Changes to the C interface
15 Changes since the 1.6.x series:
17 * Changes to the distribution
19 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
21 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
23 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
25 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
27 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
29 That is, things like HAVE_STRING_H no longer leak from Guile's
32 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
34 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
35 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
36 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
37 so the current effective-version is "1.7". The effective version
38 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
39 items like the versioned share directory name
40 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.7.
42 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
43 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
44 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
45 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
46 with each micro release during a stable series.
48 ** Thread implementation has changed.
50 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
51 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
52 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
53 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
54 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
57 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
58 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
59 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
60 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
63 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
64 in which case "null" threads are used.
66 See the manual for details, nodes "Initialization", "Multi-Threading",
67 "Blocking", and others.
69 ** There is the new notion of 'discouraged' features.
71 This is a milder form of deprecation.
73 Things that are discouraged should not be used in new code, but it is
74 OK to leave them in old code for now. When a discouraged feature is
75 used, no warning message is printed like there is for 'deprecated'
76 features. Also, things that are merely discouraged are nevertheless
77 implemented efficiently, while deprecated features can be very slow.
79 You can omit discouraged features from libguile by configuring it with
80 the '--disable-discouraged' option.
82 ** Deprecation warnings can be controlled at run-time.
84 (debug-enable 'warn-deprecated) switches them on and (debug-disable
85 'warn-deprecated) switches them off.
87 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
89 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when
90 you don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but
91 where you have some section(s) of code which you consider can run
92 in parallel to other sections.
94 ### move rest to manual
96 They "flag" (with dynamic extent) sections of code to be of
97 "serial" or "parallel" nature and have the single effect of
98 preventing a serial section from being run in parallel with any
99 serial section (including itself).
101 Both serialize and parallelize can be nested. If so, the
102 inner-most construct is in effect.
104 NOTE 1: A serial section can run in parallel with a parallel
107 NOTE 2: If a serial section S is "interrupted" by a parallel
108 section P in the following manner: S = S1 P S2, S2 is not
109 guaranteed to be resumed by the same thread that previously
112 WARNING: Spawning new threads within a serial section have
113 undefined effects. It is OK, though, to spawn threads in unflagged
114 sections of code where neither serialize or parallelize is in
117 A typical usage is when Guile is used as scripting language in some
118 application doing heavy computations. If each thread is
119 encapsulated with a serialize form, you can then put a parallelize
120 form around the code performing the heavy computations (typically a
121 C code primitive), enabling the computations to run in parallel
122 while the scripting code runs single-threadedly.
124 ** Support for SRFI 61, extended cond syntax for multiple valuesm has
127 This SRFI is always available.
129 ** Support for require-extension, SRFI-55, has been added.
131 The SRFI-55 special form `require-extension' has been added. It is
132 available at startup, and provides a portable way to load Scheme
133 extensions. SRFI-55 only requires support for one type of extension,
134 "srfi"; so a set of SRFIs may be loaded via (require-extension (srfi 1
137 ** New module (srfi srfi-26) provides support for `cut' and `cute'.
139 The (srfi srfi-26) module is an implementation of SRFI-26 which
140 provides the `cut' and `cute' syntax. These may be used to specialize
141 parameters without currying.
143 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
145 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
146 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
148 ** The modules (srfi srfi-13), (srfi srfi-14) and (srfi srfi-4) have
149 been merged with the core, making their functionality always
152 The modules are still available, tho, and you could use them together
153 with a renaming import, for example.
155 ** Guile no longer includes its own version of libltdl.
157 The official version is good enough now.
159 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
161 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
162 provided. Use 'make html'.
164 ** The configure option '--disable-arrays' has been removed.
166 Support for arrays and uniform numeric arrays is now always included
169 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
171 ** New command line option `-L'.
173 This option adds a directory to the front of the load path.
175 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
177 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
178 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
180 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
182 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
183 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
185 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
187 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
188 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
191 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
194 (define-module (demo)
198 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
201 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
203 ** Guardians have changed back to their original semantics
205 Guardians now behave like described in the paper by Dybvig et al. In
206 particular, they no longer make guarantees about the order in which
207 they return objects, and they can no longer be greedy.
209 They no longer drop cyclic data structures.
211 The C function scm_make_guardian has been changed incompatibly and no
212 longer takes the 'greedy_p' argument.
214 ** New function hashx-remove!
216 This function completes the set of 'hashx' functions.
218 ** The concept of dynamic roots has been factored into continuation
219 barriers and dynamic states.
221 Each thread has a current dynamic state that carries the values of the
222 fluids. You can create and copy dynamic states and use them as the
223 second argument for 'eval'. See "Fluids and Dynamic States" in the
226 To restrict the influence that captured continuations can have on the
227 control flow, you can errect continuation barriers. See "Continuation
228 Barriers" in the manual.
230 The function call-with-dynamic-root now essentially temporarily
231 installs a new dynamic state and errects a continuation barrier.
233 ** The default load path no longer includes "." at the end.
235 Automatically loading modules from the current directory should not
236 happen by default. If you want to allow it in a more controlled
237 manner, set the environment variable GUILE_LOAD_PATH or the Scheme
240 ** The uniform vector and array support has been overhauled.
242 It now complies with SRFI-4 and the weird prototype based uniform
243 array creation has been deprecated. See the manual for more details.
245 Some non-compatible changes have been made:
246 - characters can no longer be stored into byte arrays.
247 - strings and bit vectors are no longer considered to be uniform vectors.
248 - array-rank throws an error for non-arrays instead of returning zero.
249 - array-ref does no longer accept non-arrays when no indices are given.
251 There is the new notion of 'generalized vectors' and corresponding
252 procedures like 'generalized-vector-ref'. Generalized vectors include
253 strings, bitvectors, ordinary vectors, and uniform numeric vectors.
255 Arrays use generalized vectors as their storage, so that you still
256 have arrays of characters, bits, etc. However, uniform-array-read!
257 and uniform-array-write can no longer read/write strings and
260 ** There is now support for copy-on-write substrings, mutation-sharing
261 substrings and read-only strings.
263 Three new procedures are related to this: substring/shared,
264 substring/copy, and substring/read-only. See the manual for more
267 ** Backtraces will now highlight the value that caused the error.
269 By default, these values are enclosed in "{...}", such as in this
278 <unnamed port>:1:1: In procedure car in expression (car (quote a)):
279 <unnamed port>:1:1: Wrong type (expecting pair): a
280 ABORT: (wrong-type-arg)
282 The prefix and suffix used for highlighting can be set via the two new
283 printer options 'highlight-prefix' and 'highlight-suffix'. For
284 example, putting this into ~/.guile will output the bad value in bold
287 (print-set! highlight-prefix "\x1b[1m")
288 (print-set! highlight-suffix "\x1b[22m")
291 ** 'gettext' support for internationalization has been added.
293 See the manual for details.
295 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
297 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
300 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
302 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
303 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
304 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
305 '@' as a target of 'set!', as in (set! (@ mod var) val).
307 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
308 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
309 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
312 ** Keyword syntax has been made more disciplined.
314 Previously, the name of a keyword was read as a 'token' but printed as
315 a symbol. Now, it is read as a general Scheme datum which must be a
326 ERROR: In expression (a b c):
330 ERROR: Unbound variable: foo
335 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): 12
339 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): (a b c)
343 ** The printing of symbols that might look like keywords can be
346 The new printer option 'quote-keywordish-symbols' controls how symbols
347 are printed that have a colon as their first or last character. The
348 default now is to only quote a symbol with #{...}# when the read
349 option 'keywords' is not '#f'. Thus:
351 guile> (define foo (string->symbol ":foo"))
352 guile> (read-set! keywords #f)
355 guile> (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
358 guile> (print-set! quote-keywordish-symbols #f)
362 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
364 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
365 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
366 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
369 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
372 ** The module system now checks for duplicate bindings.
374 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
377 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more 'duplicates'
378 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
386 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
387 has been detected is to
389 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
390 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
391 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
394 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
397 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
399 to your .guile init file.
401 ### move rest to manual
403 The syntax for the :duplicates option is:
405 :duplicates HANDLER-NAME | (HANDLER1-NAME HANDLER2-NAME ...)
407 Specifying multiple handlers is useful since some handlers (such as
408 replace) can defer conflict resolution to others. Each handler is
409 tried until a binding is selected.
411 Currently available duplicates handlers are:
413 check report an error for bindings with a common name
414 warn issue a warning for bindings with a common name
415 replace replace bindings which have an imported replacement
416 warn-override-core issue a warning for imports which override core bindings
417 and accept the override
418 first select the first encountered binding (override)
419 last select the last encountered binding (override)
421 These two are provided by the (oop goops) module:
423 merge-generics merge generic functions with a common name
424 into an <extended-generic>
425 merge-accessors merge accessors with a common name
427 The default duplicates handler is:
429 (replace warn-override-core warn last)
431 A recommended handler (which is likely to correspond to future Guile
432 behavior) can be installed with:
434 (default-duplicate-binding-handler '(replace warn-override-core check))
436 ** New define-module option: :replace
438 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
441 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
442 for the core binding `format'.
444 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
446 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
447 a prefix to all imported bindings.
450 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
452 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
455 ** Conflicting generic functions can be automatically merged.
457 When two imported bindings conflict and they are both generic
458 functions, the two functions can now be merged automatically. This is
459 activated with the 'duplicates' handler 'merge-generics'.
461 ### move the rest to the manual
463 It is sometimes tempting to use GOOPS accessors with short names.
464 For example, it is tempting to use the name `x' for the x-coordinate
467 Assume that we work with a graphical package which needs to use two
468 independent vector packages for 2D and 3D vectors respectively. If
469 both packages export `x' we will encounter a name collision.
471 This can now be resolved automagically with the duplicates handler
472 `merge-generics' which gives the module system license to merge all
473 generic functions sharing a common name:
475 (define-module (math 2D-vectors)
476 :use-module (oop goops)
479 (define-module (math 3D-vectors)
480 :use-module (oop goops)
483 (define-module (my-module)
484 :use-module (math 2D-vectors)
485 :use-module (math 3D-vectors)
486 :duplicates merge-generics)
488 x in (my-module) will now share methods with x in both imported
491 There will, in fact, now be three distinct generic functions named
492 `x': x in (2D-vectors), x in (3D-vectors), and x in (my-module). The
493 last function will be an <extended-generic>, extending the previous
496 Let's call the imported generic functions the "ancestor functions". x
497 in (my-module) is, in turn, a "descendant function" of the imported
498 functions, extending its ancestors.
500 For any generic function G, the applicable methods are selected from
501 the union of the methods of the descendant functions, the methods of G
502 itself and the methods of the ancestor functions.
504 This, ancestor functions share methods with their descendants and vice
505 versa. This implies that x in (math 2D-vectors) can will share the
506 methods of x in (my-module) and vice versa, while x in (math 2D-vectors)
507 doesn't share the methods of x in (math 3D-vectors), thus preserving
510 Sharing is dynamic, so that adding new methods to a descendant implies
511 adding it to the ancestor.
513 If duplicates checking is desired in the above example, the following
514 form of the :duplicates option can be used instead:
516 :duplicates (merge-generics check)
518 ** New function: effective-version
520 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
521 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
522 to the distribution" above.
524 ** New feature, 'futures': future, make-future, future-ref
526 Futures are like promises, but begin execution immediately in a new
527 thread. See the "Futures" section in the reference manual.
529 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
531 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
532 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
534 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
536 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
537 instead if blocking and indicate failure.
539 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
541 The funtion 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
542 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
545 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
547 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
549 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
551 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
552 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
553 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
556 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
557 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
558 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
561 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
562 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
564 When a thread blocks on a mutex, a condition variable or is waiting
565 for IO to be possible, it will still execute system asyncs. This can
566 be used to interrupt such a thread by making it execute a 'throw', for
569 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
571 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
572 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
575 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
576 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
578 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
579 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
580 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
581 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
582 level for the current thread.
584 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
586 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
588 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
589 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
592 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
594 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
596 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
599 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
601 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
604 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
605 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
606 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
608 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
609 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
610 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
611 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
622 ERROR: Numerical overflow
624 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
627 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
629 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
630 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
631 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
642 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
644 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
645 them is also done exactly, of course:
650 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
653 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
654 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
656 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
658 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
659 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
660 equal to a floating point number. For example:
662 (inexact->exact 1.234)
663 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
665 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitely:
667 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
670 ** New function 'rationalize'.
672 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
673 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
675 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
678 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
679 result when both its arguments are exact.
681 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
683 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
684 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
685 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
687 ** Guile now has uninterned symbols.
689 The new function 'make-symbol' will return an uninterned symbol. This
690 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
691 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
693 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
696 ** pretty-print has more options.
698 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
699 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
700 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
702 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
704 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
705 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
706 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
708 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
710 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
711 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
713 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
715 Change your code to use 'define-macro' or r5rs macros. Also, be aware
716 that macro expansion will not be done during evaluation, but prior to
719 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
721 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
722 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
723 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
724 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
725 without the soft port blocking.
727 ** New debugging feature: breakpoints.
729 Guile now has breakpoints. For details see the `Debugging Features'
730 chapter in the reference manual.
732 ** Deprecated: undefine
734 There is no replacement for undefine.
736 * The functions make-keyword-from-dash-symbol and keyword-dash-symbol
737 have been discouraged.
739 They are relics from a time where a keyword like #:foo was used
740 directly as a Tcl option "-foo" and thus keywords were internally
741 stored as a symbol with a starting dash. We now store a symbol
744 Use symbol->keyword and keyword->symbol instead.
747 * Changes to the C interface
749 ** The functions scm_hash_fn_remove_x and scm_hashx_remove_x no longer
750 take a 'delete' function argument.
752 This argument makes no sense since the delete function is used to
753 remove a pair from an alist, and this must not be configurable.
755 This is an incompatible change.
757 ** The GH interface is now subject to the deprecation mechanism
759 The GH interface has been deprecated for quite some time but now it is
760 actually removed from Guile when it is configured with
761 --disable-deprecated.
763 See the manual "Transitioning away from GH" for more information.
765 ** A new family of functions for converting between C values and
766 Scheme values has been added.
768 These functions follow a common naming scheme and are designed to be
769 easier to use, thread-safe and more future-proof than the older
774 These are predicates that return a C boolean: 1 or 0. Instead of
775 SCM_NFALSEP, you can now use scm_is_true, for example.
777 - <type> scm_to_<type> (SCM val, ...)
779 These are functions that convert a Scheme value into an appropriate
780 C value. For example, you can use scm_to_int to safely convert from
783 - SCM scm_from_<type> (<type> val, ...)
785 These functions convert from a C type to a SCM value; for example,
786 scm_from_int for ints.
788 There is a huge number of these functions, for numbers, strings,
789 symbols, vectors, etc. They are documented in the reference manual in
790 the API section together with the types that they apply to.
792 ** New functions for dealing with complex numbers in C have been added.
794 The new functions are scm_c_make_rectangular, scm_c_make_polar,
795 scm_c_real_part, scm_c_imag_part, scm_c_magnitude and scm_c_angle.
796 They work like scm_make_rectangular etc but take or return doubles
799 ** The function scm_make_complex has been discouraged.
801 Use scm_c_make_rectangular instead.
803 ** The INUM macros have been deprecated.
805 A lot of code uses these macros to do general integer conversions,
806 although the macros only work correctly with fixnums. Use the
807 following alternatives.
809 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
810 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
811 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
812 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
814 SCM_VALIDATE_INUM_* -> Do not use these; scm_to_int, etc. will
815 do the validating for you.
817 ** The scm_num2<type> and scm_<type>2num functions and scm_make_real
818 have been discouraged.
820 Use the newer scm_to_<type> and scm_from_<type> functions instead for
821 new code. The functions have been discouraged since they don't fit
824 ** The 'boolean' macros SCM_FALSEP etc have been discouraged.
826 They have strange names, especially SCM_NFALSEP, and SCM_BOOLP
827 evaluates its argument twice. Use scm_is_true, etc. instead for new
830 ** The macro SCM_EQ_P has been discouraged.
832 Use scm_is_eq for new code, which fits better into the naming
835 ** The macros SCM_CONSP, SCM_NCONSP, SCM_NULLP, and SCM_NNULLP have
838 Use the function scm_is_pair or scm_is_null instead.
840 ** The functions scm_round and scm_truncate have been deprecated and
841 are now available as scm_c_round and scm_c_truncate, respectively.
843 These functions occupy the names that scm_round_number and
844 scm_truncate_number should have.
846 ** The functions scm_c_string2str, scm_c_substring2str, and
847 scm_c_symbol2str have been deprecated.
849 Use scm_to_locale_stringbuf or similar instead, maybe together with
852 ** New functions scm_c_make_string, scm_c_string_length,
853 scm_c_string_ref, scm_c_string_set_x, scm_c_substring,
854 scm_c_substring_shared, scm_c_substring_copy.
856 These are like scm_make_string, scm_length, etc. but are slightly
857 easier to use from C.
859 ** The macros SCM_STRINGP, SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_STRING_LENGTH,
860 SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, and SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH have been deprecated.
862 They export too many assumptions about the implementation of strings
863 and symbols that are no longer true in the presence of
864 mutation-sharing substrings and when Guile switches to some form of
867 When working with strings, it is often best to use the normal string
868 functions provided by Guile, such as scm_c_string_ref,
869 scm_c_string_set_x, scm_string_append, etc. Be sure to look in the
870 manual since many more such functions are now provided than
873 When you want to convert a SCM string to a C string, use the
874 scm_to_locale_string function or similar instead. For symbols, use
875 scm_symbol_to_string and then work with that string. Because of the
876 new string representation, scm_symbol_to_string does not need to copy
877 and is thus quite efficient.
879 ** Some string, symbol and keyword functions have been discouraged.
881 They don't fit into the uniform naming scheme and are not explicit
882 about the character encoding.
884 Replace according to the following table:
886 scm_allocate_string -> scm_c_make_string
887 scm_take_str -> scm_take_locale_stringn
888 scm_take0str -> scm_take_locale_string
889 scm_mem2string -> scm_from_locale_stringn
890 scm_str2string -> scm_from_locale_string
891 scm_makfrom0str -> scm_from_locale_string
892 scm_mem2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symboln
893 scm_mem2uninterned_symbol -> scm_from_locale_stringn + scm_make_symbol
894 scm_str2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symbol
896 SCM_SYMBOL_HASH -> scm_hashq
897 SCM_SYMBOL_INTERNED_P -> scm_symbol_interned_p
899 scm_c_make_keyword -> scm_from_locale_keyword
901 ** The functions scm_keyword_to_symbol and sym_symbol_to_keyword are
902 now also available to C code.
904 ** SCM_KEYWORDP and SCM_KEYWORDSYM have been deprecated.
906 Use scm_is_keyword and scm_keyword_to_symbol instead, but note that
907 the latter returns the true name of the keyword, not the 'dash name',
908 as SCM_KEYWORDSYM used to do.
910 ** A new way to access arrays in a thread-safe and efficient way has
913 See the manual, node "Accessing Arrays From C".
915 ** The old uniform vector and bitvector implementations have been
916 unceremoniously removed.
918 This implementation exposed the details of the tagging system of
919 Guile. Use the new C API explained in the manual in node "Uniform
920 Numeric Vectors" and "Bit Vectors", respectively.
922 The following macros are gone: SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE,
923 SCM_UVECTOR_MAXLENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_UVECTOR_TAG,
924 SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVECTOR_P, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE,
925 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
926 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_BITVECTOR_TAG,
927 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVEC_REF, SCM_BITVEC_SET,
930 ** The macros dealing with vectors have been deprecated.
932 Use the new functions scm_is_vector, scm_vector_elements,
933 scm_vector_writable_elements, etc, or scm_is_simple_vector,
934 SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_REF, SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_SET, etc instead. See the
935 manual for more details.
937 Deprecated are SCM_VECTORP, SCM_VELTS, SCM_VECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
938 SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_REF, SCM_VECTOR_SET, SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS.
940 The following macros have been removed: SCM_VECTOR_BASE,
941 SCM_SET_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_MAKE_VECTOR_TAG, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH,
942 SCM_VELTS_AS_STACKITEMS, SCM_SETVELTS, SCM_GC_WRITABLE_VELTS.
944 ** Some C functions and macros related to arrays have been deprecated.
946 Migrate according to the following table:
948 scm_make_uve -> scm_make_typed_array, scm_make_u8vector etc.
949 scm_make_ra -> scm_make_array
950 scm_shap2ra -> scm_make_array
951 scm_cvref -> scm_c_generalized_vector_ref
952 scm_ra_set_contp -> do not use
953 scm_aind -> scm_array_handle_pos
954 scm_raprin1 -> scm_display or scm_write
956 SCM_ARRAYP -> scm_is_array
957 SCM_ARRAY_NDIM -> scm_c_array_rank
958 SCM_ARRAY_DIMS -> scm_array_handle_dims
959 SCM_ARRAY_CONTP -> do not use
960 SCM_ARRAY_MEM -> do not use
961 SCM_ARRAY_V -> scm_array_handle_elements or similar
962 SCM_ARRAY_BASE -> do not use
964 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
966 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which returns a pointer
967 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
969 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
970 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
971 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
972 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
974 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SCM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
976 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
977 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
978 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
980 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
981 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
983 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
984 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
985 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
986 smob word. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
988 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and re-entries.
990 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
991 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
992 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
993 prevent a potential memory leak:
1000 scm_frame_begin (0);
1002 mem = scm_malloc (100);
1003 scm_frame_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITELY);
1005 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
1006 SCM_FRAME_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless.
1013 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITELY, MEM will be freed by
1014 SCM_FRAME_END as well.
1018 For full documentation, see the node "Frames" in the manual.
1020 ** New function scm_frame_free
1022 This function calls 'free' on a given pointer when a frame is left.
1023 Thus the call to scm_frame_unwind_handler above could be replaced with
1024 simply scm_frame_free (mem).
1026 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
1027 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
1029 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
1031 ** New functions scm_frame_block_asyncs and scm_frame_unblock_asyncs
1033 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
1034 scm_frame_block_asyncs in a 'frame' (see above). Likewise for
1035 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_frame_unblock_asyncs.
1037 ** The macros SCM_DEFER_INTS, SCM_ALLOW_INTS, SCM_REDEFER_INTS,
1038 SCM_REALLOW_INTS have been deprecated.
1040 They do no longer fulfill their original role of blocking signal
1041 delivery. Depending on what you want to achieve, replace a pair of
1042 SCM_DEFER_INTS and SCM_ALLOW_INTS with a frame that locks a mutex,
1043 blocks asyncs, or both. See node "Critical Sections" in the manual.
1045 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
1047 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
1048 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
1049 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
1051 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
1053 C code can now use scm_frame_current_<foo>_port in a 'frame' (see
1054 above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
1056 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
1058 C code can now use scm_frame_fluid in a 'frame' (see
1059 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
1061 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
1063 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
1064 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
1065 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
1067 ** The functions scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed.
1069 You should not have used them.
1071 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
1073 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
1074 private or renamed with a more suitable public name.
1076 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
1078 This macro is not intended for public use.
1080 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
1082 Use scm_is_true (scm_inexact_p (...)) instead.
1084 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
1086 Use scm_is_real instead.
1088 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
1090 Use scm_is_complex instead.
1092 ** Some preprocessor defines have been deprecated.
1094 These defines indicated whether a certain feature was present in Guile
1095 or not. Going forward, assume that the features are always present.
1097 The macros are: USE_THREADS, GUILE_ISELECT, READER_EXTENSIONS,
1098 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS, DYNAMIC_LINKING.
1100 The following macros have been removed completely: MEMOIZE_LOCALS,
1101 SCM_RECKLESS, SCM_CAUTIOUS.
1103 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
1105 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
1108 ** New function: scm_effective_version
1110 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
1111 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
1112 to the distribution" above.
1114 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
1116 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
1117 arguments are now passed directly:
1119 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
1121 This is an incompatible change.
1123 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
1125 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
1126 function in the init section.
1128 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
1130 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
1132 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
1133 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
1134 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
1135 stays roughly constant.
1137 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
1138 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
1139 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
1140 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
1141 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
1144 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
1145 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
1146 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
1147 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
1149 For understanding the memory usage of a GUILE program, the routine
1150 gc-live-object-stats returns an alist containing the number of live
1151 objects for every type.
1154 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
1156 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
1158 ** The struct scm_cell type has been renamed to scm_t_cell
1160 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
1161 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
1162 initializes a new cell (see below).
1164 ** New functions for memory management
1166 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
1167 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
1168 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
1169 cause aborts in long running programs.
1171 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
1172 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
1174 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
1175 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
1176 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
1177 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
1178 details and for upgrading instructions.
1180 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
1181 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
1182 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
1184 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
1186 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
1187 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
1188 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
1189 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
1190 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
1192 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
1193 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
1194 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
1196 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
1197 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
1199 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
1201 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old
1202 macros had problems because with them allocation and initialization
1203 was separated and the GC could sometimes observe half initialized
1204 cells. Only careful coding by the user of SCM_NEWCELL and
1205 SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
1207 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
1209 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
1212 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
1214 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
1216 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
1218 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or to define macros in
1219 Scheme, using 'define-macro'.
1221 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
1223 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
1224 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
1226 ** The names scm_internal_select, scm_thread_sleep, and
1227 scm_thread_usleep have been discouraged.
1229 Use scm_std_select, scm_std_sleep, scm_std_usleep instead.
1231 ** The GC can no longer be blocked.
1233 The global flags scm_gc_heap_lock and scm_block_gc have been removed.
1234 The GC can now run (partially) concurrently with other code and thus
1235 blocking it is not well defined.
1237 ** Many definitions have been removed that were previously deprecated.
1239 scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify,
1240 scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
1241 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2,
1242 scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY,
1243 SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED,
1244 scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL,
1245 SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL,
1246 SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG,
1247 SCM_NUM_SIGS, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
1248 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
1249 scm_eval2, root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
1250 SCM_RWSTRINGP, scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring,
1251 scm_tc7_substring, sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP,
1252 SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
1253 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
1254 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
1255 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
1256 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
1257 scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern, scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
1258 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
1259 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
1260 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
1261 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
1262 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
1263 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
1264 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
1265 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
1266 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
1267 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
1268 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable,
1269 SCM_CHARS, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH.
1272 Changes since Guile 1.4:
1274 * Changes to the distribution
1276 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
1278 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
1280 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
1281 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
1282 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
1283 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
1284 indicate major changes in Guile.
1286 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
1287 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
1288 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
1289 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
1291 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
1292 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
1293 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
1294 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
1295 micro version number.
1297 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
1299 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
1301 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
1302 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
1304 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
1306 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
1307 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
1308 See INSTALL and README for more information.
1310 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
1312 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
1313 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
1314 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
1317 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
1319 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
1322 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
1324 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
1325 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
1327 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
1329 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
1330 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
1333 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
1335 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
1338 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
1341 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
1343 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
1345 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
1346 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
1347 open-output-string, get-output-string.
1349 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
1351 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
1353 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
1356 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
1358 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
1360 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
1362 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
1363 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
1364 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
1366 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
1368 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
1370 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
1371 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
1380 See README there for more info.
1382 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
1383 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
1386 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
1388 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
1390 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
1392 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
1393 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
1394 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
1396 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
1398 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
1399 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
1400 to be named `and-let*', of course.
1402 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
1403 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
1405 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
1408 (oop goops describe)
1410 (oop goops active-slot)
1411 (oop goops composite-slot)
1413 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
1414 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
1415 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
1417 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
1419 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
1420 in the default environment:
1422 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
1423 %read-line write-line
1425 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
1426 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
1428 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
1430 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
1433 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
1434 can be used for similar functionality.
1436 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
1438 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
1439 it defines two procedures:
1441 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1443 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
1444 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1445 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
1448 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1450 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
1451 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1452 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
1453 write large strings.
1455 ** New module (ice-9 match)
1457 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
1458 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
1460 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
1462 for complete documentation.
1464 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
1466 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
1467 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
1468 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
1469 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
1471 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
1472 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
1476 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
1477 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
1478 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
1481 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
1484 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
1485 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
1487 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
1488 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
1491 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
1494 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
1496 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
1498 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1500 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
1502 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
1503 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
1504 Scheme programs easier.
1506 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
1507 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
1508 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
1509 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
1510 `cond-expand' when using this option.
1513 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
1514 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
1516 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
1519 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
1521 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
1522 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
1523 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
1526 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1528 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
1530 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
1531 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
1532 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
1533 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
1534 was also ASCII, for example.
1536 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
1538 tag - no replacement.
1539 fseek - replaced by seek.
1540 list* - replaced by cons*.
1542 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
1546 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
1547 (define m (make-safe-module))
1548 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
1549 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
1550 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
1552 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
1554 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
1555 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
1556 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
1558 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
1560 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
1561 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
1562 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
1563 from the issues related to the module system.
1565 *** New function: load-extension
1567 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
1569 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
1571 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
1572 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
1573 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
1575 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
1577 This function registers a initialization function for use by
1578 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
1579 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
1580 support dynamic linking).
1582 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
1584 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
1585 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
1586 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
1587 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
1590 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
1591 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
1592 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
1593 library and initialize it explicitely.
1595 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
1596 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
1598 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
1600 (define-module (foo bar))
1602 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
1604 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
1606 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
1607 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
1609 (scheme-report-environment 5)
1610 (null-environment 5)
1611 (interaction-environment)
1617 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
1619 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
1620 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
1621 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
1622 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
1624 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
1625 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
1626 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
1627 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
1628 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
1629 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
1630 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
1631 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
1632 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
1633 one eval to the next.
1635 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
1636 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
1637 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
1638 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
1639 subforms are at the top-level as well.
1641 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
1642 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
1643 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
1644 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
1645 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
1646 used in a lexical environment.
1648 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
1649 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
1650 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
1651 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
1652 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
1653 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
1655 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
1657 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
1658 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
1659 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
1660 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
1661 new facilities: selection and renaming.
1663 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
1664 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
1665 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
1667 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
1668 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
1670 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
1671 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
1672 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1674 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1675 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
1677 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
1678 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
1679 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
1680 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
1683 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1684 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
1685 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
1686 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1688 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1689 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1690 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
1692 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1693 ;; and all four by upcasing.
1694 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
1695 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
1696 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
1698 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1700 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1701 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1702 :renamer upcase-symbol))
1704 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
1705 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
1706 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
1708 See manual for more info.
1710 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
1712 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
1713 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
1714 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
1716 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
1718 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
1719 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
1720 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
1722 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
1723 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
1724 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
1725 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
1727 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
1729 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
1730 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
1732 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
1733 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
1734 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
1735 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
1736 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
1739 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
1740 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
1741 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
1742 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
1743 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
1744 successful and #f if it wasn't.
1746 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
1747 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
1748 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
1749 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
1750 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
1752 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
1753 objects are usually permanent.
1755 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
1756 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
1758 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
1760 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
1761 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
1764 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
1768 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
1773 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
1775 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
1776 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
1777 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
1778 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
1780 ** New function `make-object-property'
1782 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
1783 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
1787 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
1788 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
1792 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
1793 source properties eventually.
1795 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
1797 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
1798 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
1799 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
1801 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
1802 will be removed in the next release.
1804 ** New define-module option: pure
1806 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
1811 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
1814 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
1816 Export names NAME1 ...
1818 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
1819 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
1823 (define-module (foo)
1825 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
1828 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
1833 ** New function: object->string OBJ
1835 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
1837 ** New function: port? X
1839 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
1840 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
1842 ** New function: file-port?
1844 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
1846 ** New function: port-for-each proc
1848 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
1849 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
1850 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
1851 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
1852 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
1854 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
1856 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
1857 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
1858 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
1859 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
1860 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
1863 ** New function: close-fdes fd
1865 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
1866 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
1867 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
1868 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
1871 ** New function: crypt password salt
1873 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
1876 ** New function: chroot path
1878 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
1880 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
1882 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
1885 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
1887 Get or set the priority of the running process.
1889 ** New function: getpass prompt
1891 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
1894 ** New function: flock file operation
1896 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
1898 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
1900 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
1903 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
1905 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
1906 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
1907 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
1908 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
1909 of the temporary file.
1911 ** New function: open-input-string string
1913 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
1914 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
1915 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
1917 ** New function: open-output-string
1919 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
1920 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
1922 ** New function: get-output-string
1924 Return the contents of an output string port.
1926 ** New function: identity
1928 Return the argument.
1930 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
1931 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
1933 ** New function: inet-pton family address
1935 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
1936 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
1937 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1940 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
1941 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
1943 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
1945 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
1946 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
1947 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1950 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
1951 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
1952 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
1956 Use `identity' instead.
1962 ** Deprecated: return-it
1966 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
1968 Use `string-length' instead.
1970 ** Deprecated: flags
1972 Use `logior' instead.
1974 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
1976 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
1977 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
1978 port-for-each is more flexible.
1980 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
1981 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
1982 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
1984 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
1986 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
1988 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
1990 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
1992 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
1994 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
1995 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
1997 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
1998 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
2000 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
2001 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
2003 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
2005 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
2006 Removed function: builtin-bindings
2008 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
2009 Use module system operations for all variables.
2011 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
2013 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
2016 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
2018 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
2019 The following bugs have been fixed:
2021 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
2022 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
2025 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
2026 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
2027 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
2029 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
2030 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
2032 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
2033 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
2036 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
2037 The expansion used to be like so:
2039 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
2041 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
2043 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
2045 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
2046 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
2048 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
2050 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
2051 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
2052 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
2056 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
2057 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
2059 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
2064 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
2065 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
2067 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
2068 and `d', other keywords allowed.
2069 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
2071 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
2074 * Changes to the C interface
2076 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
2078 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
2079 with "_t". What a concept.
2081 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
2083 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
2085 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
2089 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
2090 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
2092 *** C Functions removed
2094 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
2095 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
2096 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
2097 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
2098 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
2099 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
2100 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
2102 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
2104 Use scm_mem2string instead.
2106 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
2108 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
2110 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
2111 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
2113 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
2115 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
2118 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
2120 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
2122 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
2124 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
2125 Evaluation" in the manual.
2127 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
2129 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
2130 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
2132 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
2134 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
2135 Constructors" in the manual.
2137 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
2139 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
2140 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
2142 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
2144 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
2146 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
2147 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
2148 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
2150 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
2152 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
2154 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
2155 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
2156 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
2159 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
2161 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
2163 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
2164 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
2166 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
2168 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
2169 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
2170 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
2171 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
2173 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
2174 scm_primitive_property_ref
2175 scm_primitive_property_set_x
2176 scm_primitive_property_del_x
2178 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
2179 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
2181 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
2183 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
2184 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
2185 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
2186 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
2188 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
2190 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
2191 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
2192 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
2193 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
2194 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
2195 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
2196 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
2198 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
2199 scm_remember_upto_here
2201 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
2203 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
2205 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
2206 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
2208 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
2210 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
2212 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
2214 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
2216 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
2218 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
2219 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
2220 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
2221 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
2222 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
2223 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
2225 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
2227 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
2229 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
2230 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
2231 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
2233 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
2235 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
2236 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
2237 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
2239 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
2241 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
2242 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
2245 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
2248 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
2249 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
2252 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
2254 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
2256 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
2258 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2260 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
2262 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
2264 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
2265 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
2266 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
2267 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
2268 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
2269 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
2270 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
2271 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
2272 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
2273 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
2274 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
2275 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
2276 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
2277 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
2278 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
2280 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
2281 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
2282 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
2283 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
2284 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
2285 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
2286 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
2287 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
2288 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2289 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
2290 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
2291 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
2292 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
2293 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
2294 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
2295 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
2296 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
2297 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
2298 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
2299 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
2300 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
2301 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
2302 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
2303 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
2304 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
2305 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
2306 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
2307 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
2308 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
2310 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
2312 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
2314 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
2315 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
2317 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
2319 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
2321 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
2323 Use scm_string_hash instead.
2325 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
2327 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
2329 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
2331 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
2333 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
2336 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
2337 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
2339 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
2341 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
2343 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
2345 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
2347 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
2349 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
2351 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
2353 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
2356 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
2358 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
2360 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
2362 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
2363 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
2365 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
2366 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
2368 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
2370 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
2371 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
2372 scm_module_define, scm_define.
2374 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
2376 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
2378 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
2379 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
2381 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
2382 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
2383 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
2384 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
2386 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
2387 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
2388 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
2390 Use the new ones from above instead.
2392 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
2394 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
2395 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
2396 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
2398 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
2399 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
2401 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
2402 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
2405 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
2406 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
2408 Use the new functions instead.
2410 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
2413 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
2415 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
2417 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
2420 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
2422 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
2425 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
2427 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
2430 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
2431 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
2432 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
2434 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
2436 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
2437 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
2439 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
2440 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
2441 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
2442 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
2445 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
2447 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
2448 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
2449 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
2450 inexact for an exact.
2452 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
2453 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
2454 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
2457 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
2458 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
2459 accept an inexact argument.
2461 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
2462 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
2464 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
2467 ** New number validation macros:
2468 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
2472 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
2474 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
2475 scm_unprotect_object.
2477 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
2479 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
2481 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
2484 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
2486 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
2490 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
2492 * Changes to the distribution
2494 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
2496 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
2497 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
2498 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
2499 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
2500 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
2501 obtain these programs.
2502 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
2503 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
2505 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
2506 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
2507 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
2508 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
2509 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
2511 However, this approach means that minor differences between
2512 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
2513 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
2514 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
2518 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
2521 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
2522 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
2523 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
2524 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
2526 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
2528 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
2530 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
2531 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
2533 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
2534 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
2536 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
2537 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
2539 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
2540 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
2541 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
2542 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
2544 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
2546 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
2550 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
2551 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
2553 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
2555 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
2556 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
2558 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
2559 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
2560 number of objects of that kind.
2562 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
2564 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
2565 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
2566 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
2567 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
2568 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
2570 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
2572 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
2574 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
2576 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
2579 ** New module (ice-9 time)
2581 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
2583 ** New module (ice-9 history)
2585 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
2587 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2589 ** New command line option --debug
2591 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
2593 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
2595 ** New help facility
2597 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
2598 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
2599 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
2600 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
2601 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
2602 (help) gives this text
2604 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
2605 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
2607 Examples: (help help)
2609 (help "output-string")
2611 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
2613 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
2615 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
2616 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
2619 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
2620 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
2621 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
2624 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
2625 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
2626 use absolute filenames when possible.
2628 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
2629 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
2630 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
2633 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
2635 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
2636 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
2637 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
2638 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
2640 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
2642 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
2644 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
2645 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
2646 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
2648 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
2649 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
2650 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
2652 (read-enable 'positions)
2653 (debug-enable 'debug)
2655 ** Backtraces in scripts
2657 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
2661 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
2663 at the top of the script.
2665 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
2666 The second enables backtraces.)
2668 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
2670 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
2671 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
2672 substantially faster than before.
2674 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
2675 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
2677 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
2678 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
2680 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
2682 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
2683 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
2684 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
2686 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
2687 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
2688 when this hook is run in the future.
2690 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
2691 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
2693 ** Improvements to garbage collector
2695 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
2696 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
2699 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
2700 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
2701 more and more memory for certain programs.)
2703 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
2704 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
2706 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
2707 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
2709 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
2710 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
2711 in order not to need further allocation.)
2713 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
2716 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
2717 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
2718 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
2719 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
2721 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
2723 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
2726 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
2728 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
2731 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
2732 GC in percent of total heap size
2735 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
2736 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
2738 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
2740 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
2741 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
2743 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
2745 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
2746 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
2748 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
2750 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
2751 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
2755 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
2756 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
2758 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
2760 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2762 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
2764 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
2766 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
2768 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
2769 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
2771 (simple-format port message . args)
2772 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
2773 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
2774 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
2775 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
2776 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
2777 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
2778 Does not add a trailing newline."
2780 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
2782 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
2783 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
2785 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
2786 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
2788 ** Deprecated: list*
2790 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
2792 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
2794 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
2795 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
2797 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
2798 is returned as result.
2800 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
2802 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
2804 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
2806 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
2807 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
2810 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
2812 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
2814 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
2815 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
2817 * Changes to the gh_ interface
2819 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
2821 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
2823 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2825 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
2827 Thanks to Greg Badros!
2829 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2831 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2832 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
2833 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
2835 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
2838 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
2840 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
2841 the readability of argument checking.
2843 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
2845 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
2847 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
2849 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
2850 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
2851 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
2852 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
2853 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
2854 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
2855 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
2857 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
2859 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
2861 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
2862 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
2864 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
2866 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
2867 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
2870 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
2872 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
2873 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
2874 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
2876 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
2877 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
2878 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
2880 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
2881 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
2882 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
2883 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
2884 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
2885 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
2886 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
2888 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
2889 scm_end_input (object);
2890 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
2891 ptob->flush (object);
2893 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
2894 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
2897 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
2899 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
2901 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
2902 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
2903 removed in a future version.
2905 ** The format of error message strings has changed
2907 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
2908 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
2909 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
2910 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
2912 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
2913 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
2915 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
2918 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
2920 in your configure.in.
2922 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
2927 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
2933 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
2935 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
2939 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
2940 (define make-message string-append)
2942 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
2944 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
2948 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
2953 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
2957 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
2959 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
2960 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
2962 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
2964 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
2965 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
2966 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
2967 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
2968 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
2969 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
2971 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
2972 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
2973 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
2975 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
2976 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
2977 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
2980 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
2981 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
2982 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
2983 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
2984 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
2986 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
2987 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
2988 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
2989 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
2990 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
2991 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
2992 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
2994 Destructors are not yet implemented.
2996 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
2997 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
2998 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
3000 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
3001 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
3002 KEY in the calling thread.
3004 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
3005 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
3006 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
3007 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
3008 associated with the key.
3010 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
3012 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
3013 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
3015 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
3017 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
3018 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
3019 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
3021 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
3023 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
3024 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
3026 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
3028 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
3030 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
3031 returned is undefined.
3033 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
3034 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
3035 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
3037 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
3038 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
3039 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
3041 ** New C level GC hooks
3043 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
3045 scm_before_gc_c_hook
3048 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
3049 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
3050 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
3052 scm_before_mark_c_hook
3053 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
3054 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
3056 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
3057 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
3060 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
3062 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
3063 allocation parameters
3065 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
3066 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
3067 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
3071 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
3072 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
3073 scm_default_max_segment_size
3075 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
3077 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
3078 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
3080 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
3082 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
3083 object and count on the object being protected until
3084 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
3086 The functions also have better time complexity.
3088 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
3089 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
3090 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
3091 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
3092 are no longer needed.
3094 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
3096 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
3097 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
3098 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
3099 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
3101 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
3103 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
3105 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
3107 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
3108 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
3109 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
3110 until this issue has been settled.
3112 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
3114 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
3116 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
3119 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
3121 * Changes to system call interfaces:
3123 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
3124 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
3125 descriptors were checked.
3127 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
3128 atomically written to a pipe.
3130 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
3131 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
3132 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
3133 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
3134 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
3135 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
3136 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
3139 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
3140 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
3141 is changed without calling tzset.
3143 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
3145 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
3146 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
3147 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
3149 (define write-network-long
3150 (lambda (value port)
3151 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
3152 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
3153 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
3155 (define read-network-long
3157 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
3158 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
3159 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
3161 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
3162 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
3164 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
3165 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
3166 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
3167 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
3169 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
3170 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
3171 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
3172 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
3176 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
3178 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3182 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
3183 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
3184 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
3190 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
3191 for a description of available commands.
3193 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
3194 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
3195 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
3197 (debug-enable 'backwards)
3199 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
3200 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
3202 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
3204 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
3206 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
3207 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
3208 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
3209 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
3210 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
3211 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
3214 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
3216 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
3217 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
3218 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
3219 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
3221 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
3222 the file and should not be affected by this change.
3224 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
3226 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3228 ** Readline support has changed again.
3230 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
3231 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
3232 to activate readline is now
3234 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
3237 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
3239 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
3240 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
3241 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
3244 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
3245 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
3246 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
3249 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
3250 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
3251 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
3252 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
3253 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
3254 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
3256 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
3257 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
3259 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
3261 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
3262 object it receives is the same string passed to
3263 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
3264 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
3265 string, not the suffix.
3267 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
3268 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
3269 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
3271 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
3273 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
3274 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
3275 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
3276 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
3279 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3281 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
3283 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
3284 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
3285 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
3286 appear from left to right.
3288 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
3291 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
3293 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
3294 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
3296 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3300 *** New function: hook? OBJ
3302 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
3304 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
3306 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
3307 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
3308 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
3310 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
3312 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
3314 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
3316 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
3319 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
3321 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
3322 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
3323 mentioning it here anyway.
3325 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
3327 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
3328 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
3329 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
3330 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
3333 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
3335 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
3337 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
3339 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
3340 otherwise return #f.
3342 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
3344 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
3345 returned by `opendir'.
3347 ** New function: using-readline?
3349 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
3351 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3353 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
3354 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3356 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3358 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3360 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
3361 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
3362 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3364 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
3366 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
3367 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
3369 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
3371 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
3372 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
3373 documentation slots are not yet used.
3375 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
3377 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
3378 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
3379 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
3384 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
3385 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
3386 (string-append x y))
3388 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
3389 can also be used for concatenating strings.
3391 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
3392 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
3393 be made in a clean way.]
3395 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
3397 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3399 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3401 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
3402 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
3404 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3406 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
3408 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3410 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3412 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
3413 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
3414 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
3415 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
3418 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3420 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
3422 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3424 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3426 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
3427 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
3429 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3431 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
3433 Evaluates the body of a special form.
3435 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
3437 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
3438 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
3439 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
3440 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
3441 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
3442 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
3444 This should not make any difference for most users.
3446 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
3448 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
3449 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
3451 *** New functions for applying generic functions
3453 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
3454 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
3455 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
3456 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
3457 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
3459 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
3461 It is now replaced by:
3463 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
3465 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3466 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3468 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3470 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
3471 This might change when we get the new module system.
3473 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
3477 Changes since Guile 1.3:
3479 * Changes to mailing lists
3481 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
3483 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
3486 * Changes to the distribution
3488 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
3490 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
3491 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
3492 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
3493 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
3494 you explicitly specify it.
3496 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
3497 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
3498 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
3499 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
3500 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
3503 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
3504 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
3505 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
3506 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
3508 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
3509 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
3510 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
3513 You can activate the readline support by issuing
3515 (use-modules (readline-activator))
3518 from your ".guile" file, for example.
3520 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3522 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
3523 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
3524 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
3525 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
3527 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
3528 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
3531 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3533 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
3534 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
3535 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
3536 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
3537 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
3538 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
3539 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
3540 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
3552 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
3553 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
3554 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
3555 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
3556 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
3561 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
3562 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
3570 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
3575 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
3576 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
3579 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
3580 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
3581 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
3582 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
3584 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
3586 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
3588 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
3589 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
3591 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
3593 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
3595 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
3596 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
3598 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
3601 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
3603 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
3605 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
3607 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
3609 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
3611 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
3613 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
3614 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
3615 when the hook was created.
3617 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
3618 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
3619 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
3620 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
3621 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
3622 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
3623 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
3624 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
3625 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
3627 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
3628 the dlopen family of functions.
3630 ** New function `provided?'
3632 - Function: provided? FEATURE
3633 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
3634 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
3635 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
3637 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
3639 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
3640 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
3641 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
3642 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3645 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3646 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
3647 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
3648 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
3650 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
3651 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
3652 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
3655 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
3656 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
3657 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
3658 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
3659 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
3660 but with the flag set.
3662 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
3664 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
3665 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
3667 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
3668 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
3669 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
3670 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
3671 available Scheme format implementations.
3673 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
3674 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
3675 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
3676 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
3677 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
3678 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
3679 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
3680 output is to the current error port if available by the
3681 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
3684 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
3685 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
3686 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
3687 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
3688 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
3689 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
3690 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
3691 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
3693 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
3694 be executed at a time.
3697 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
3699 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
3700 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
3701 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
3703 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
3704 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
3705 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
3706 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
3707 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
3708 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
3709 general form of a directive is:
3711 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
3713 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
3715 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3717 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
3718 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
3719 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
3722 Any (print as `display' does).
3726 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
3730 S-expression (print as `write' does).
3734 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
3740 print number sign always.
3743 print comma separated.
3745 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
3751 print number sign always.
3754 print comma separated.
3756 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
3762 print number sign always.
3765 print comma separated.
3767 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
3773 print number sign always.
3776 print comma separated.
3778 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
3783 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
3787 print a number as a Roman numeral.
3790 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
3793 print a number as an ordinal English number.
3796 print a number as a cardinal English number.
3801 prints `y' and `ies'.
3804 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3807 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3812 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
3816 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
3819 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
3820 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
3822 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3825 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
3826 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
3828 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3831 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
3833 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
3835 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3838 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
3840 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
3842 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3845 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
3848 The sign appears before the padding.
3856 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
3858 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
3863 print N page separators.
3873 newline is ignored, white space left.
3876 newline is left, white space ignored.
3881 relative tabulation.
3887 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
3889 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
3892 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
3894 converts by `string-capitalize'.
3897 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
3900 converts by `string-upcase'.
3903 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
3905 jumps N arguments forward.
3908 jumps 1 argument backward.
3911 jumps N arguments backward.
3914 jumps to the 0th argument.
3917 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
3919 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
3920 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
3922 take argument from N.
3925 true test conditional.
3928 if-else-then conditional.
3934 default clause follows.
3937 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
3939 at most N iterations.
3942 args from next arg (a list of lists).
3945 args from the rest of arguments.
3948 args from the rest args (lists).
3959 aborts if N <= M <= K
3961 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3964 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3967 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3973 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
3975 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
3977 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
3978 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
3979 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
3980 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
3981 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
3982 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
3986 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
3990 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
3996 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
3999 Print a `#\space' character
4001 print N `#\space' characters.
4004 Print a `#\tab' character
4006 print N `#\tab' characters.
4009 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
4010 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
4011 must be a positive decimal number.
4014 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
4015 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
4016 be processed by `read'.
4019 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
4020 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
4021 be processed by `read'.
4024 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
4027 prints format version.
4030 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
4031 and format it accordingly.
4033 *** Configuration Variables
4035 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
4036 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
4037 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
4038 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
4041 format:symbol-case-conv
4042 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
4043 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
4044 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
4045 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
4046 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
4048 format:iobj-case-conv
4049 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
4050 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
4053 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
4056 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
4062 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
4063 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
4064 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
4065 `format' padding style.
4068 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
4069 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
4070 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
4071 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
4075 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
4076 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
4077 directive parameters or modifiers)).
4080 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
4081 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
4082 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
4083 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
4084 parameters or modifiers)).
4087 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
4089 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
4091 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
4092 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
4094 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
4095 string-downcase! functions.
4097 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
4098 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
4100 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
4103 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
4106 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
4107 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
4109 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
4111 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
4112 the symbol had be read by `read'.
4114 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
4115 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
4116 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
4117 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
4118 would if STRING were input.
4120 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
4122 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
4123 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
4124 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
4125 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
4128 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
4130 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
4131 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
4134 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
4136 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
4137 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
4139 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
4140 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
4142 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
4143 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
4144 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
4145 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
4147 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
4148 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
4150 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
4151 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
4152 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
4154 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
4155 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
4157 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
4158 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
4159 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
4160 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
4161 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
4163 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
4164 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
4165 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
4166 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
4167 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
4168 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
4170 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
4171 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
4172 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
4175 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
4176 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
4177 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
4178 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
4179 the following grammar:
4180 ((apples (single-char #\a))
4181 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
4182 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
4183 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
4184 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
4185 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
4186 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
4187 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
4188 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
4189 last option in its combination)
4191 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
4192 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
4193 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
4194 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
4196 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
4197 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
4198 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
4200 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
4201 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
4202 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
4204 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
4205 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
4206 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
4207 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
4208 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
4209 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
4210 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
4211 ordinary argument strings.
4213 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
4214 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
4215 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
4216 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
4218 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
4219 as a list, associated with the empty list.
4221 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
4222 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
4223 - a required option is omitted
4224 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
4225 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
4226 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
4227 - an option predicate fails
4232 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
4235 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
4236 (verbose (required? #f)
4239 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
4240 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
4241 (predicate ,string?))))
4243 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
4244 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
4246 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
4247 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
4248 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
4249 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
4252 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
4254 It will be removed in a few releases.
4256 ** New syntax: lambda*
4257 ** New syntax: define*
4258 ** New syntax: define*-public
4259 ** New syntax: defmacro*
4260 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
4261 Guile now supports optional arguments.
4263 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
4264 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
4265 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
4266 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
4267 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
4269 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
4270 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
4271 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
4273 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
4275 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
4276 and examples for `lambda*':
4279 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
4281 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
4282 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
4283 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
4284 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
4285 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
4286 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
4287 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
4288 can be checked with the bound? macro.
4290 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
4292 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
4293 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
4294 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
4295 are given as keywords are bound to values.
4297 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
4298 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
4299 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
4300 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
4301 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
4302 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
4303 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
4304 and until the procedure is called.
4306 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
4308 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
4309 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
4310 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
4311 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
4312 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
4313 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
4314 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
4315 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
4316 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
4317 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
4319 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
4320 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
4321 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
4322 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
4325 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
4327 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
4328 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
4329 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
4330 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
4332 ** New syntax: and-let*
4333 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
4335 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
4336 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
4337 (<variable> <expression>)
4340 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
4341 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
4342 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
4345 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
4346 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
4347 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
4348 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
4349 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
4350 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
4351 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
4353 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
4354 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
4355 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
4356 shadow earlier bindings.
4358 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
4360 ** New sorting functions
4362 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
4363 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
4364 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
4365 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
4367 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
4368 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
4371 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4372 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
4373 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
4375 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
4376 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
4377 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
4378 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
4380 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4381 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
4382 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
4383 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
4384 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
4387 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4388 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
4389 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
4390 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
4391 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
4392 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
4394 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
4395 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
4396 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
4398 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4399 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
4400 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
4403 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
4404 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
4405 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
4407 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
4408 Added for compatibility with scsh.
4410 ** New built-in random number support
4412 *** New function: random N [STATE]
4413 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
4414 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
4415 returned have a uniform distribution.
4417 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
4418 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
4419 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
4420 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
4421 effect of the `random' operation.
4423 *** New variable: *random-state*
4424 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
4425 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
4426 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
4427 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
4428 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
4431 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
4432 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4433 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4434 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
4435 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
4437 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
4438 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4439 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4440 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
4441 initialized using SEED.
4443 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
4444 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
4445 range between 0 and 1.
4447 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4448 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
4449 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
4450 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
4451 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
4452 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
4453 or a uniform vector of doubles.
4455 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4456 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
4457 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
4458 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
4459 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
4460 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4462 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
4463 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
4464 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
4465 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
4467 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
4468 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
4469 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
4470 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4472 *** New function: random:exp STATE
4473 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
4474 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
4476 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
4478 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
4481 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
4482 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
4485 ** New function: make-guardian
4486 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
4487 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
4488 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
4489 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
4490 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
4492 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
4493 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
4494 one object if at all.
4496 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
4497 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
4498 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
4500 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
4501 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
4502 read again in last-in first-out order.
4504 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
4505 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
4507 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
4509 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
4510 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
4511 file position is used.
4513 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
4514 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
4515 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
4517 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
4518 redefined using seek.
4520 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
4521 size is not supplied.
4523 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
4524 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
4526 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
4527 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
4529 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
4531 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
4532 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
4533 and returns the contents as a single string.
4535 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
4536 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
4537 lists in serial order.
4539 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
4540 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
4541 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
4543 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
4544 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
4545 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
4546 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
4548 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
4549 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
4550 and #f if an error occured.
4552 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
4554 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
4555 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
4556 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
4557 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
4559 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
4561 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
4564 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
4566 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
4569 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4573 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
4574 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
4576 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
4577 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
4581 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4583 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
4585 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
4586 binds a variable named NAME to it.
4588 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
4590 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
4591 might change when we get the new module system.
4593 ** The smob interface
4595 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
4596 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
4598 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
4600 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
4604 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
4605 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
4606 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
4607 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
4608 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
4609 will be freed by the default free function.
4611 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4612 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
4613 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4614 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4616 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4617 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
4618 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4619 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4621 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
4623 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
4624 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
4628 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
4629 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4630 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4632 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
4633 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
4634 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4635 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4637 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
4638 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
4639 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
4641 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
4642 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
4643 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
4644 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
4646 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
4647 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
4648 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
4650 *** scm_newptob has been removed
4654 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
4656 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
4657 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
4658 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
4660 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
4661 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
4662 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
4664 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
4665 a string port's buffer.
4667 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
4668 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
4669 function pointers which together define the current random number
4670 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
4671 number library functions.
4673 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
4676 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
4677 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
4680 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
4681 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4683 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
4684 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
4686 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
4687 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
4690 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
4691 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
4692 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
4693 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
4695 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
4696 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
4697 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
4698 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
4699 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
4700 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
4701 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
4703 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
4704 by libguile and the application.
4706 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4707 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4708 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
4709 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
4711 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
4712 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
4714 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4715 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
4716 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
4718 ** Random number library functions
4719 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
4720 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
4721 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
4723 The default random state is stored in:
4725 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
4726 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
4727 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
4732 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
4734 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
4735 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
4736 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
4737 isn't a random state.
4739 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
4740 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
4742 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
4743 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
4744 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
4745 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
4747 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4748 Return 32 random bits.
4750 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4751 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
4753 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4754 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
4756 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4757 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
4759 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
4760 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4762 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
4763 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4764 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
4768 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
4770 * Changes to the distribution
4772 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
4773 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
4774 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
4777 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
4778 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
4779 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
4781 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
4782 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
4783 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
4784 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
4787 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
4788 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
4789 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
4791 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4793 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
4795 *** Function: batch-mode?
4797 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
4800 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
4802 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
4803 case has not been implemented.
4805 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
4806 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
4807 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
4810 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
4811 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
4813 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
4815 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4817 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
4819 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
4820 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
4823 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
4824 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
4825 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
4826 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
4829 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
4831 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
4832 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
4833 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
4834 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
4835 find those libraries.
4837 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
4838 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
4841 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
4843 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
4844 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
4845 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
4846 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
4848 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
4849 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
4850 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
4854 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
4856 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
4857 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
4858 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
4861 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
4862 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
4863 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
4864 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
4866 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
4867 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
4870 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
4871 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
4872 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
4873 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
4874 compiler where to find the libraries.
4876 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
4877 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
4878 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
4880 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
4881 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
4882 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
4883 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
4884 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
4888 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4890 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
4891 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
4892 internationalization support.
4894 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
4895 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
4896 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
4897 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
4898 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
4900 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
4901 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
4902 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
4903 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
4904 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
4906 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
4907 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
4908 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
4909 any GNU mirror site.
4911 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
4913 ** New function: add-history STRING
4914 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
4915 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
4916 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
4918 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
4920 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
4921 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
4922 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
4925 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
4926 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
4927 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
4929 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
4931 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
4934 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
4935 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
4938 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
4939 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
4940 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
4941 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
4942 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
4943 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
4945 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
4946 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
4947 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
4948 of the form mentioned above.
4950 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
4951 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
4952 returned in the special `rest' list.
4954 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
4955 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
4957 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
4959 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
4961 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
4963 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
4964 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
4965 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
4966 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
4967 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
4968 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
4969 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
4970 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
4973 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
4975 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
4977 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
4978 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
4981 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
4982 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
4983 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
4987 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
4988 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
4989 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
4990 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
4991 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
4992 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
4993 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
4994 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
4997 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
4999 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
5000 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
5001 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
5003 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
5005 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
5006 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
5008 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
5009 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
5010 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
5012 Why do we have this function?
5013 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
5014 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
5015 primitive, and display it differently, and
5016 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
5017 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
5020 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
5021 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
5024 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
5025 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
5026 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
5027 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
5029 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
5030 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
5033 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
5034 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
5036 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
5038 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
5039 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
5040 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
5041 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
5042 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
5043 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
5044 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
5047 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
5049 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
5050 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
5052 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
5053 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
5054 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
5055 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
5056 properly continue the print chain.
5058 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
5059 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
5060 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
5061 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
5062 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
5063 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
5064 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
5065 print-state, it is simply ignored.
5067 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
5068 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
5069 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
5070 safest to not check for these pairs.
5072 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
5073 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
5074 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
5075 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
5077 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
5079 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
5080 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
5082 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
5084 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
5086 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
5087 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
5088 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
5090 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
5091 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
5092 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
5094 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
5095 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
5096 the following functions and macros:
5098 Function: make-fluid
5100 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
5101 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
5102 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
5103 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
5104 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
5106 Function: fluid? OBJ
5108 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
5110 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
5111 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
5113 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
5114 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
5116 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
5118 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
5119 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
5120 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
5121 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
5122 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
5123 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
5124 modified by `with-fluids*'.
5126 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
5128 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
5129 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
5130 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
5131 should evaluate to a fluid.
5133 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
5135 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
5136 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
5137 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
5138 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
5139 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
5141 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
5144 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
5146 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
5148 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
5150 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
5153 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
5154 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
5155 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
5156 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
5157 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
5160 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
5161 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
5162 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
5164 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
5165 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
5166 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
5168 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
5169 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
5170 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
5171 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
5173 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
5174 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
5175 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
5176 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
5178 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
5179 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
5180 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
5181 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
5183 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
5184 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
5185 their revealed counts set to zero.
5187 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5188 Returns an integer file descriptor.
5190 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5191 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
5193 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5194 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
5196 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5197 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
5198 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
5200 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
5201 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
5202 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
5204 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
5205 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
5206 default environment inherited by child processes.
5208 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
5209 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
5210 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
5212 The return value is unspecified.
5214 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
5215 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
5216 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
5217 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
5218 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
5220 The return value is unspecified.
5222 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
5223 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
5231 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
5232 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
5235 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
5238 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
5239 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
5240 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
5242 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
5243 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
5244 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
5245 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
5248 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
5249 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
5251 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
5252 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
5253 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
5254 the `environ' procedure.
5256 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
5257 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
5260 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
5261 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
5263 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
5264 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
5265 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
5266 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
5268 *** procedure: times
5269 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
5270 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
5271 return a selected component:
5274 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
5278 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
5281 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
5285 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
5286 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
5290 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
5291 terminated child processes.
5293 ** Removed: list-length
5294 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
5295 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
5297 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
5299 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
5301 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
5303 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
5304 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
5305 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
5306 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
5308 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
5309 extra complexity it introduces.
5311 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
5312 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
5314 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
5315 variable to any non-empty value.
5317 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
5318 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
5320 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5322 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
5323 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
5325 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
5327 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
5328 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
5330 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
5332 ** vector handling routines
5334 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
5335 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
5336 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
5337 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
5338 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
5340 ** pair and list routines
5342 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
5345 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
5347 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
5350 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5352 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
5354 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
5355 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
5356 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
5357 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
5358 site-specific initialization code.
5360 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
5361 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
5362 initialization processes.
5364 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
5365 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
5366 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
5367 initialized properly.
5369 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
5370 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
5371 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
5373 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
5374 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
5375 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
5376 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
5377 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
5379 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
5381 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
5382 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
5383 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
5384 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
5385 objects the smob refers to get marked.
5387 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
5388 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
5389 which look like this:
5392 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
5394 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
5395 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
5398 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
5399 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
5402 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
5404 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
5405 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
5406 you will need to change your functions slightly.
5408 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
5409 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
5410 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
5411 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
5412 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
5414 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
5415 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
5417 int (*free) (SCM port);
5418 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
5419 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
5420 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
5424 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
5425 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
5426 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
5428 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
5431 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
5432 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
5433 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
5435 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
5436 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
5437 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
5440 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
5444 struct timeval *timeout);
5446 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
5447 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
5448 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
5449 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
5450 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
5451 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
5453 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
5454 scm_catch_body_t body,
5456 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5459 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
5460 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
5461 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
5462 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
5463 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
5464 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
5466 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
5468 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5471 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
5472 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
5473 spawning threads from application C code.
5475 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
5476 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
5477 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
5478 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
5479 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
5480 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
5482 ** Removed functions:
5484 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
5485 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
5487 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
5489 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
5490 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
5492 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
5494 ** mbstrings are now removed
5496 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
5497 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
5499 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
5501 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
5502 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
5503 their new names and arguments:
5505 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
5506 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
5507 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
5508 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
5511 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
5513 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
5515 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
5518 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
5520 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
5521 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
5522 pass a #f arg to catch.
5524 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
5526 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
5527 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
5530 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
5531 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
5532 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
5533 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
5534 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
5535 reclaim its storage.
5537 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
5538 worrying that some other function you call will call
5539 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
5540 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
5541 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
5542 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
5545 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
5547 * Changes to the distribution
5549 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
5550 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
5553 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
5554 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
5556 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5557 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5559 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
5561 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
5562 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
5563 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
5565 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5567 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
5568 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
5569 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
5570 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
5571 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
5572 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
5574 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
5575 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
5576 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
5579 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
5580 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
5581 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
5582 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
5584 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
5585 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
5586 libraries to your link command:
5588 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
5589 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
5590 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5591 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5593 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
5594 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
5595 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
5597 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5599 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
5600 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
5603 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
5605 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
5606 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
5607 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
5608 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
5609 searched is system dependent.
5611 (dynamic-object? VAL)
5613 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
5615 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
5617 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
5618 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
5620 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5622 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
5623 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
5624 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
5625 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
5626 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
5629 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5631 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
5632 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
5633 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
5634 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
5635 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
5637 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
5639 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
5640 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
5642 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
5644 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
5645 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
5646 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
5649 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
5651 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
5652 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
5653 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
5654 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
5656 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
5657 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
5659 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
5661 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
5662 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
5664 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
5666 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
5667 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
5675 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
5677 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
5678 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
5679 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
5680 a more informative way.
5682 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
5683 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
5684 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
5685 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
5686 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
5687 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
5689 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
5690 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
5693 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
5694 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
5695 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
5698 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
5699 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
5700 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
5701 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
5702 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
5703 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
5705 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
5706 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
5707 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
5708 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
5711 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
5712 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
5713 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
5714 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
5715 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
5716 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
5718 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
5719 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
5720 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
5721 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
5722 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
5724 *** regexp functions
5726 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
5727 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
5728 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
5730 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
5731 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
5732 with SCSH regular expressions.
5734 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
5735 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
5736 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
5737 position of STR at which to begin matching.
5739 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
5740 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
5741 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
5742 `string-match' returns `#f'.
5744 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
5745 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
5746 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
5747 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
5748 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
5749 match strings against the compiled regexp.
5751 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
5752 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
5753 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
5754 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
5755 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
5757 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5759 **** Constant: regexp/extended
5760 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
5761 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
5762 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
5764 **** Constant: regexp/icase
5765 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
5766 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
5768 **** Constant: regexp/newline
5769 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
5771 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
5774 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
5775 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5776 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
5778 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
5779 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5780 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
5782 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
5783 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
5784 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
5785 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
5786 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
5789 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5791 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
5792 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
5793 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
5794 used when different portions of a string are passed to
5795 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
5796 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
5798 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
5799 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
5800 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
5802 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
5803 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
5806 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
5807 and replace them with the contents of another string.
5809 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
5810 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
5811 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
5812 may be one of the following arguments:
5814 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
5816 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
5818 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
5819 the regexp match is written.
5821 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
5822 following the regexp match is written.
5824 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
5825 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
5828 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
5829 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
5830 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
5831 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
5832 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
5833 which should be matched against this regular expression.
5835 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
5838 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
5839 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
5840 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
5841 written out to PORT.
5843 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
5844 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
5845 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
5846 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
5847 will return after processing a single match.
5849 *** Match Structures
5851 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
5852 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
5853 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
5854 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
5855 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
5856 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
5859 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
5860 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
5861 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
5862 information about the original target string that was matched against a
5863 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
5865 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
5866 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
5867 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
5869 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
5870 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
5871 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
5872 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
5873 number N did not match, return `#f'.
5875 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
5876 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
5878 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
5879 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
5881 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
5882 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
5884 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
5885 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
5887 **** Function: match:count MATCH
5888 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
5889 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
5890 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
5892 **** Function: match:string MATCH
5893 Return the original TARGET string.
5895 *** Backslash Escapes
5897 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
5898 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
5899 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
5900 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
5901 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
5902 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
5904 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
5905 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
5906 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
5907 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
5908 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
5909 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
5910 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
5911 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
5913 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
5914 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
5915 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
5916 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
5917 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
5918 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
5919 each match a single backslash in the target string.
5921 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
5922 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
5923 return the resulting string.
5925 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
5926 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
5927 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
5928 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
5929 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
5930 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
5931 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
5932 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
5933 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
5934 translated to the single character `*'.
5936 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
5937 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
5938 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
5939 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
5940 consecutive backslashes:
5942 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
5944 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
5945 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
5946 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
5948 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
5949 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
5950 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
5951 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
5952 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
5953 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
5955 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
5957 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
5958 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
5959 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
5960 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
5961 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
5962 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
5963 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
5964 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
5965 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
5966 cumbersome escape syntax.
5968 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5970 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5972 * Changes to system call interfaces:
5974 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
5977 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
5979 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
5981 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
5984 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
5985 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
5986 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
5987 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
5988 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
5990 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
5991 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
5992 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
5993 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
5994 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
5995 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
5996 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
5999 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
6000 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
6001 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
6004 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
6005 `force-output' on every port open for output.
6007 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
6008 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
6009 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
6010 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
6011 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
6012 installed, you can say:
6014 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
6017 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6019 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
6020 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
6021 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
6022 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
6023 new dynamic roots and threads.
6026 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
6028 * Changes to the distribution.
6030 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
6032 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
6033 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
6034 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
6035 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
6036 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
6037 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
6038 programming language. These are packaged together because the
6039 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
6041 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
6044 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
6045 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
6050 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
6052 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
6053 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
6055 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
6056 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
6057 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
6058 the (command-line) function.
6059 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
6060 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
6061 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
6063 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
6064 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
6065 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
6066 command line arguments
6067 -ds do -s script at this point
6068 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
6069 -h, --help display this help and exit
6070 -v, --version display version information and exit
6071 \ read arguments from following script lines
6073 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
6074 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
6076 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6079 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
6083 (main (command-line))
6085 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
6087 ekko a speckled gecko
6089 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
6090 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
6091 following list of command-line arguments:
6093 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
6095 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
6096 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
6097 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
6098 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
6099 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
6101 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
6103 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
6105 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
6106 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
6109 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
6110 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
6111 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
6112 SCSH) for circumventing them.
6114 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
6115 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
6116 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
6117 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
6119 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
6123 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
6127 If the user invokes this script as follows:
6129 ekko a speckled gecko
6131 Unix expands this into
6133 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
6135 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
6136 read from the second line of the script, producing:
6138 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6140 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
6141 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
6143 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
6144 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
6145 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
6146 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
6147 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
6148 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
6149 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
6150 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
6151 it only terminates the argument list.)
6152 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
6153 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
6154 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
6155 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
6156 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
6157 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
6158 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
6159 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
6161 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
6163 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
6164 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
6165 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
6166 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
6167 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
6169 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
6170 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
6171 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
6173 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
6175 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
6176 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
6177 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
6178 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
6181 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
6182 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
6183 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
6185 * Changes to Scheme functions
6187 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
6188 and disabled by default.
6190 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
6191 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
6192 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
6193 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
6195 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
6197 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
6199 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
6200 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
6202 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
6203 (read-set! keywords #f)
6205 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
6206 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
6207 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
6210 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
6211 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
6212 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
6215 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
6216 support for Scheme functions.
6218 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
6219 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
6220 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
6221 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
6224 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
6225 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
6226 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
6229 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
6230 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
6231 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
6234 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
6235 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
6236 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
6237 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
6238 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
6239 display the result as a prompt.
6240 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
6242 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
6243 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
6244 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
6247 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
6248 procedure of zero arguments.
6250 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
6251 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
6252 argument is bound in the current module.
6254 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
6255 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
6256 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
6257 public bindings into the current module.
6259 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
6260 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
6262 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
6263 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
6265 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
6266 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
6268 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
6269 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
6271 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
6272 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
6274 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
6275 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
6276 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
6277 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
6278 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
6280 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
6281 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
6282 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
6283 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
6285 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
6288 ** Changes to I/O functions
6290 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
6291 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
6292 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
6294 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
6295 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
6296 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
6298 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
6299 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
6301 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
6302 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
6303 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
6304 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
6306 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
6308 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
6309 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
6311 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
6312 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
6313 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
6314 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
6315 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
6318 'trim omit delimiter from result
6319 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
6320 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
6321 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
6323 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
6325 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
6326 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
6328 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
6329 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
6330 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
6331 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
6332 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
6334 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
6335 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
6336 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
6338 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
6339 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
6340 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
6341 above, and defaults to 'peek.
6343 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
6344 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6346 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
6347 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
6349 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
6351 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
6352 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
6353 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
6354 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
6355 a delimiting character.
6356 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
6358 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
6359 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
6360 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
6361 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
6362 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
6363 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
6365 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
6366 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6368 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
6369 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
6370 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
6372 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
6373 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
6374 the array to read and write.
6376 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
6377 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
6380 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
6382 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
6385 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
6386 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
6387 Values for COMMAND are:
6389 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
6390 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
6391 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
6392 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
6393 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
6394 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
6395 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
6396 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
6398 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
6400 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
6401 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
6402 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
6403 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
6404 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
6405 corresponding return set will be the same.
6407 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
6410 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
6411 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
6412 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
6413 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
6414 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
6415 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
6416 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
6417 special file being created.
6419 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
6420 clashing with various SCSH forks.
6422 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
6423 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
6424 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
6425 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
6426 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
6427 and originating address.
6429 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
6430 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
6431 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
6433 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
6436 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
6437 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
6440 (status:exit-val STATUS)
6441 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
6442 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
6443 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
6444 this function returns #f.
6446 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
6447 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
6448 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
6451 (status:term-sig STATUS)
6452 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
6453 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
6456 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
6457 a valid STATUS value.
6459 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
6461 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
6462 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
6464 Component Accessor Setter
6465 ========================= ============ ============
6466 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
6467 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
6468 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
6469 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
6470 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
6471 year tm:year set-tm:year
6472 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
6473 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
6474 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
6475 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
6476 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
6478 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
6479 describing the host system:
6482 ============================================== ================
6483 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
6484 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
6485 release level of the operating system utsname:release
6486 version level of the operating system utsname:version
6487 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
6489 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
6490 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
6491 system's user database:
6494 ====================== =================
6495 user name passwd:name
6496 user password passwd:passwd
6499 real name passwd:gecos
6500 home directory passwd:dir
6501 shell program passwd:shell
6503 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
6504 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
6505 system's group database:
6508 ======================= ============
6509 group name group:name
6510 group password group:passwd
6512 group members group:mem
6514 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
6515 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
6519 ========================= ===============
6520 official name of host hostent:name
6521 alias list hostent:aliases
6522 host address type hostent:addrtype
6523 length of address hostent:length
6524 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
6526 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
6527 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
6531 ========================= ===============
6532 official name of net netent:name
6533 alias list netent:aliases
6534 net number type netent:addrtype
6535 net number netent:net
6537 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
6538 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
6542 ========================= ===============
6543 official protocol name protoent:name
6544 alias list protoent:aliases
6545 protocol number protoent:proto
6547 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
6548 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
6552 ========================= ===============
6553 official service name servent:name
6554 alias list servent:aliases
6555 port number servent:port
6556 protocol to use servent:proto
6558 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
6559 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
6562 ======================================== ===============
6563 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
6564 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
6565 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
6566 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
6568 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
6569 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
6570 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
6572 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
6573 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
6575 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
6576 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
6578 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
6579 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
6581 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
6583 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
6585 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
6586 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
6587 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
6589 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
6590 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
6591 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
6592 return the remaining characters as a string.
6594 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
6595 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
6596 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
6598 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
6600 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6602 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
6605 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
6608 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
6609 and returns the array
6611 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
6612 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
6613 the user to interpret the data both ways.
6615 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6617 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
6618 symbol's value from C code:
6620 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
6621 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
6622 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
6623 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
6625 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
6626 without assigning them a value.
6628 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
6629 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
6630 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
6632 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
6633 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
6634 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
6636 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
6637 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
6639 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
6640 doesn't actually care about that.
6642 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
6643 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
6644 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
6646 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
6647 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
6648 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
6649 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
6650 which we have just created and initialized.
6652 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
6653 should one occur. We call it like this:
6654 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
6656 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
6657 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
6658 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
6659 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
6660 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
6661 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
6664 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
6665 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
6666 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
6667 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
6668 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
6669 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
6670 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
6673 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
6674 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
6675 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
6676 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
6677 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
6680 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
6681 scm_internal_catch, except:
6683 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
6684 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
6685 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
6686 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
6689 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
6690 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
6691 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
6693 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
6694 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
6695 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
6696 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
6699 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
6700 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
6701 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
6703 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
6704 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
6705 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
6706 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
6707 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
6709 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
6710 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
6711 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
6713 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
6714 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
6715 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
6717 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
6718 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
6720 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
6721 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
6722 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
6725 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
6726 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
6727 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
6728 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
6729 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
6730 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
6731 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
6734 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
6735 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
6737 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
6738 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
6739 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
6740 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
6741 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
6744 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
6745 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
6747 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
6748 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
6751 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
6752 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
6754 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6757 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
6758 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
6759 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
6760 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
6761 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
6762 given the following arguments:
6764 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6766 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
6768 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
6770 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6773 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
6774 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
6775 command-line arguments.
6777 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
6778 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
6779 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
6780 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
6781 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
6782 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
6785 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6788 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
6789 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
6791 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
6792 rearranged slightly. They are now:
6794 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6795 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6796 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
6797 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
6799 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6800 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6802 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6803 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
6804 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6805 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
6807 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6808 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6810 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
6811 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
6813 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
6815 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
6816 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
6817 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
6820 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
6821 returns a port instead of an FD object.
6823 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
6824 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
6829 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
6832 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
6834 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
6835 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
6836 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
6837 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
6839 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
6841 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
6843 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
6844 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
6845 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
6846 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
6847 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
6848 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
6849 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
6850 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
6851 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
6852 for more information.
6854 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
6855 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
6857 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
6858 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
6859 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
6860 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
6861 following two lines at the top of the file:
6863 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6866 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
6867 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
6868 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
6870 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
6872 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6874 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
6877 (display (car args))
6878 (if (pair? (cdr args))
6880 (loop (cdr args)))))
6883 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
6884 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
6885 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
6886 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
6887 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
6888 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
6892 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
6895 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
6898 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
6900 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
6901 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
6902 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
6903 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
6904 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
6907 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
6908 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
6909 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
6910 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
6911 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
6914 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
6917 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
6918 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
6919 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
6922 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
6923 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
6924 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
6926 to see a backtrace, and
6927 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
6928 to see them by default.
6932 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
6934 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
6936 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
6937 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
6940 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
6941 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
6942 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
6943 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
6946 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
6947 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
6948 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
6949 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
6950 functions which inspired them.
6952 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
6953 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
6957 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
6959 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
6961 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
6962 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
6965 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
6966 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
6967 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
6969 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
6970 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
6971 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
6972 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
6973 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
6975 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
6977 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
6978 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
6979 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
6982 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
6985 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
6987 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
6988 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
6989 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
6990 above should serve their purposes.
6992 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
6993 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
6994 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
6995 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
6997 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
7000 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
7001 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
7002 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
7003 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
7005 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
7006 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
7007 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
7008 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
7010 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
7011 for the `read' function.
7014 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
7015 to that of `integer?'.
7017 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
7018 use the R4RS names for these functions.
7020 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
7021 it simply returns the object's property list.
7023 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
7024 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
7025 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
7026 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
7028 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
7030 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
7033 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
7035 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
7036 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
7038 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
7040 void (*main_func) (),
7043 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
7044 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
7045 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
7046 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
7047 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
7049 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
7050 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
7051 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
7052 know which arguments have been processed.
7054 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
7055 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
7056 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
7057 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
7058 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
7060 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
7061 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
7062 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
7063 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
7064 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
7065 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
7066 people from making that mistake.
7068 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
7069 convenient ways to override these when desired.
7071 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
7073 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
7077 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
7080 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
7081 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
7082 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
7083 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
7086 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
7087 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
7088 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
7089 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
7092 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
7093 have been added to the Guile library.
7095 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
7096 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
7097 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
7100 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
7101 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
7102 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
7104 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
7105 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
7106 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
7107 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
7108 argument from the list.
7111 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
7114 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
7115 null-terminated string, and returns it.
7117 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
7118 to a Scheme port object.
7120 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
7121 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
7126 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
7128 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
7129 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
7130 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
7131 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
7132 code as a special datatype.
7134 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
7135 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
7136 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
7137 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
7138 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
7141 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
7142 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
7143 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
7144 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
7145 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
7147 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
7150 Copyright information:
7152 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
7154 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
7155 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
7156 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
7157 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
7159 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
7160 of this document, or of portions of it,
7161 under the above conditions, provided also that they
7162 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
7167 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"