1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes. -*- text -*-
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
7 Changes since the stable branch:
9 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
11 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
12 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
13 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
15 * Changes to the C interface
17 ** New function: scm_str2string
19 This function creates a scheme string from a 0-terminated C string. The input
22 Changes since Guile 1.4:
24 * Changes to the distribution
26 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
28 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
30 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
31 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
32 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
33 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
34 indicate major changes in Guile.
36 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
37 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
38 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
39 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
41 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
42 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
43 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
44 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
47 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
49 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
51 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
52 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
53 See INSTALL and README for more information.
55 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
57 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
60 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
62 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
63 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
65 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
67 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
68 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
71 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
73 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
76 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
79 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
81 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
83 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
84 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
85 open-output-string, get-output-string.
87 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
89 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
91 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
94 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
96 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
98 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
100 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
101 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
102 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
104 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
106 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
108 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
109 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
118 See README there for more info.
120 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
121 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
124 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
126 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
128 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
130 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
131 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
132 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
134 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
136 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
137 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
138 to be named `and-let*', of course.
140 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
141 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
143 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
148 (oop goops active-slot)
149 (oop goops composite-slot)
151 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
152 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
153 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
155 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
157 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
158 in the default environment:
160 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
161 %read-line write-line
163 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
164 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
166 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
168 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
171 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
172 can be used for similar functionality.
174 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
176 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
177 it defines two procedures:
179 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
181 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
182 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
183 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
186 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
188 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
189 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
190 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
193 ** New module (ice-9 match)
195 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
196 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
198 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
200 for complete documentation.
202 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
204 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
205 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
206 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
207 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
209 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
210 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
214 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
215 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
216 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
219 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
222 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
223 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
225 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
226 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
229 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
232 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
234 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
236 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
238 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
240 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
241 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
242 Scheme programs easier.
244 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
245 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
246 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
247 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
248 `cond-expand' when using this option.
251 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
252 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
254 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
257 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
259 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
260 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
261 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
264 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
266 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
268 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
269 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
270 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
271 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
272 was also ASCII, for example.
274 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
276 tag - no replacement.
277 fseek - replaced by seek.
278 list* - replaced by cons*.
280 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
284 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
285 (define m (make-safe-module))
286 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
287 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
288 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
290 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
292 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
293 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
294 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
296 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
298 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
299 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
300 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
301 from the issues related to the module system.
303 *** New function: load-extension
305 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
307 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
309 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
310 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
311 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
313 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
315 This function registers a initialization function for use by
316 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
317 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
318 support dynamic linking).
320 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
322 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
323 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
324 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
325 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
328 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
329 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
330 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
331 library and initialize it explicitely.
333 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
334 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
336 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
338 (define-module (foo bar))
340 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
342 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
344 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
345 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
347 (scheme-report-environment 5)
349 (interaction-environment)
355 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
357 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
358 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
359 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
360 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
362 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
363 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
364 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
365 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
366 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
367 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
368 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
369 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
370 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
371 one eval to the next.
373 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
374 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
375 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
376 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
377 subforms are at the top-level as well.
379 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
380 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
381 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
382 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
383 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
384 used in a lexical environment.
386 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
387 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
388 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
389 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
390 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
391 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
393 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
395 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
396 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
397 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
398 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
399 new facilities: selection and renaming.
401 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
402 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
403 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
405 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
406 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
408 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
409 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
410 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
413 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
415 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
416 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
417 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
418 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
421 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
422 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
423 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
424 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
427 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
428 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
430 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
431 ;; and all four by upcasing.
432 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
433 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
434 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
436 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
439 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
440 :renamer upcase-symbol))
442 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
443 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
444 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
446 See manual for more info.
448 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
450 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
451 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
452 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
454 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
456 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
457 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
458 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
460 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
461 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
462 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
463 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
465 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
467 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
468 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
470 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
471 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
472 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
473 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
474 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
477 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
478 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
479 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
480 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
481 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
482 successful and #f if it wasn't.
484 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
485 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
486 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
487 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
488 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
490 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
491 objects are usually permanent.
493 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
494 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
496 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
498 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
499 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
502 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
506 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
511 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
513 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
514 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
515 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
516 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
518 ** New function `make-object-property'
520 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
521 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
525 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
526 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
530 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
531 source properties eventually.
533 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
535 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
536 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
537 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
539 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
540 will be removed in the next release.
542 ** New define-module option: pure
544 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
549 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
552 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
554 Export names NAME1 ...
556 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
557 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
563 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
566 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
571 ** New function: object->string OBJ
573 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
575 ** New function: port? X
577 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
578 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
580 ** New function: file-port?
582 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
584 ** New function: port-for-each proc
586 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
587 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
588 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
589 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
590 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
592 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
594 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
595 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
596 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
597 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
598 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
601 ** New function: close-fdes fd
603 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
604 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
605 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
606 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
609 ** New function: crypt password salt
611 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
614 ** New function: chroot path
616 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
618 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
620 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
623 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
625 Get or set the priority of the running process.
627 ** New function: getpass prompt
629 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
632 ** New function: flock file operation
634 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
636 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
638 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
641 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
643 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
644 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
645 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
646 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
647 of the temporary file.
649 ** New function: open-input-string string
651 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
652 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
653 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
655 ** New function: open-output-string
657 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
658 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
660 ** New function: get-output-string
662 Return the contents of an output string port.
664 ** New function: identity
668 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
669 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
671 ** New function: inet-pton family address
673 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
674 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
675 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
678 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
679 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
681 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
683 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
684 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
685 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
688 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
689 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
690 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
694 Use `identity' instead.
700 ** Deprecated: return-it
704 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
706 Use `string-length' instead.
710 Use `logior' instead.
712 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
714 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
715 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
716 port-for-each is more flexible.
718 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
719 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
720 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
722 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
724 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
726 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
728 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
730 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
732 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
733 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
735 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
736 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
738 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
739 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
741 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
743 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
744 Removed function: builtin-bindings
746 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
747 Use module system operations for all variables.
749 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
751 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
754 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
756 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
757 The following bugs have been fixed:
759 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
760 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
763 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
764 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
765 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
767 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
768 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
770 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
771 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
774 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
775 The expansion used to be like so:
777 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
779 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
781 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
783 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
784 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
786 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
788 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
789 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
790 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
794 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
795 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
797 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
802 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
803 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
805 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
806 and `d', other keywords allowed.
807 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
809 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
812 * Changes to the C interface
814 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
816 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
817 with "_t". What a concept.
819 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
821 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
823 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
827 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
828 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
830 *** C Functions removed
832 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
833 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
834 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
835 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
836 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
837 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
838 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
840 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
842 Use scm_mem2string instead.
844 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
846 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
848 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
849 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
851 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
853 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
856 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
858 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
860 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
862 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments.
866 scm_call_1 (proc, arg1);
868 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
870 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list
875 scm_apply_1 (proc, arg1, args);
877 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
879 Create a list of the given number of elements.
881 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
883 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
884 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
886 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
888 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
890 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
891 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
892 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
894 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
896 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
898 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
899 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
900 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
903 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
905 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
907 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
908 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
910 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
912 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
913 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
914 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
915 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
917 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
918 scm_primitive_property_ref
919 scm_primitive_property_set_x
920 scm_primitive_property_del_x
922 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
923 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
925 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
927 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
928 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
929 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
930 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
932 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
934 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
935 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
936 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
937 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
938 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
939 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
940 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
942 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
943 scm_remember_upto_here
945 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
947 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
949 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
950 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
952 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
954 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
956 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
958 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
960 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
962 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
963 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
964 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
965 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
966 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
967 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
969 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
971 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
973 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
974 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
975 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
977 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
979 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
980 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
981 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
983 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
985 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
986 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
989 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
992 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
993 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
996 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
998 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
1000 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
1002 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1004 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
1006 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
1008 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
1009 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
1010 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
1011 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
1012 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
1013 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
1014 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
1015 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
1016 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
1017 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
1018 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
1019 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
1020 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
1021 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
1022 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
1024 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
1025 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
1026 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
1027 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
1028 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
1029 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
1030 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
1031 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
1032 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1033 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
1034 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
1035 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
1036 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
1037 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
1038 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
1039 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1040 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1041 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
1042 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
1043 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
1044 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
1045 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
1046 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
1047 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
1048 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
1049 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
1050 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
1051 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
1052 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
1054 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
1056 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
1058 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
1059 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
1061 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
1063 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
1065 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
1067 Use scm_string_hash instead.
1069 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
1071 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
1073 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
1075 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
1077 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
1080 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
1081 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
1083 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
1085 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
1087 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
1089 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
1091 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
1093 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
1095 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
1097 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
1100 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
1102 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
1104 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
1106 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
1107 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
1109 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
1110 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
1112 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
1114 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
1115 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
1116 scm_module_define, scm_define.
1118 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
1120 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
1122 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
1123 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
1125 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
1126 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
1127 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
1128 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
1130 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
1131 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
1132 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
1134 Use the new ones from above instead.
1136 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
1138 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
1139 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
1140 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
1142 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
1143 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
1145 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
1146 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
1149 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
1150 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
1152 Use the new functions instead.
1154 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
1157 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
1159 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
1161 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
1164 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
1166 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
1169 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
1171 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
1174 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
1175 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
1176 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
1178 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
1180 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
1181 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
1183 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
1184 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
1185 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
1186 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
1189 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
1190 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
1191 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
1194 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
1195 types and Scheme numbers.
1197 ** New number validation macros:
1198 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
1202 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
1204 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
1205 scm_unprotect_object.
1207 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
1209 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
1211 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
1214 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
1216 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
1220 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
1222 * Changes to the distribution
1224 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
1226 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
1227 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
1228 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
1229 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
1230 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
1231 obtain these programs.
1232 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
1233 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
1235 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
1236 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
1237 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
1238 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
1239 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
1241 However, this approach means that minor differences between
1242 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
1243 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
1244 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
1248 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
1251 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
1252 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
1253 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
1254 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
1256 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
1258 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
1260 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
1261 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
1263 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
1264 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
1266 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
1267 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
1269 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
1270 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
1271 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
1272 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
1274 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
1276 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
1280 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
1281 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
1283 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
1285 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
1286 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
1288 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
1289 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
1290 number of objects of that kind.
1292 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
1294 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
1295 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
1296 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
1297 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
1298 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
1300 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
1302 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
1304 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
1306 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
1309 ** New module (ice-9 time)
1311 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
1313 ** New module (ice-9 history)
1315 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
1317 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1319 ** New command line option --debug
1321 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
1323 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
1325 ** New help facility
1327 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
1328 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
1329 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
1330 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
1331 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
1332 (help) gives this text
1334 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
1335 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
1337 Examples: (help help)
1339 (help "output-string")
1341 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
1343 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
1345 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
1346 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
1349 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
1350 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
1351 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
1354 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
1355 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
1356 use absolute filenames when possible.
1358 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
1359 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
1360 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
1363 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
1365 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
1366 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
1367 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
1368 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
1370 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
1372 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
1374 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
1375 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
1376 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
1378 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
1379 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
1380 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
1382 (read-enable 'positions)
1383 (debug-enable 'debug)
1385 ** Backtraces in scripts
1387 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
1391 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
1393 at the top of the script.
1395 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
1396 The second enables backtraces.)
1398 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
1400 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
1401 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
1402 substantially faster than before.
1404 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
1405 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
1407 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
1408 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
1410 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
1412 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
1413 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
1414 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
1416 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
1417 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
1418 when this hook is run in the future.
1420 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
1421 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
1423 ** Improvements to garbage collector
1425 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
1426 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
1429 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
1430 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
1431 more and more memory for certain programs.)
1433 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
1434 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
1436 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
1437 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
1439 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
1440 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
1441 in order not to need further allocation.)
1443 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
1446 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
1447 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
1448 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
1449 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
1451 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
1453 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
1456 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
1458 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
1461 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
1462 GC in percent of total heap size
1465 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
1466 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
1468 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
1470 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
1471 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
1473 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
1475 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
1476 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
1478 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
1480 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
1481 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
1485 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
1486 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
1488 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
1490 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1492 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
1494 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
1496 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
1498 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
1499 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
1501 (simple-format port message . args)
1502 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
1503 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
1504 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
1505 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
1506 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
1507 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
1508 Does not add a trailing newline."
1510 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
1512 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
1513 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
1515 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
1516 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
1518 ** Deprecated: list*
1520 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
1522 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
1524 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
1525 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
1527 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
1528 is returned as result.
1530 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
1532 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
1534 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
1536 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
1537 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
1540 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
1542 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
1544 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
1545 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
1547 * Changes to the gh_ interface
1549 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
1551 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
1553 * Changes to the scm_ interface
1555 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
1557 Thanks to Greg Badros!
1559 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
1561 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
1562 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
1563 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
1565 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
1568 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
1570 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
1571 the readability of argument checking.
1573 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
1575 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
1577 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
1579 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
1580 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
1581 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
1582 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
1583 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
1584 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
1585 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
1587 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
1589 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
1591 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
1592 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
1594 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
1596 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
1597 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
1600 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
1602 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
1603 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
1604 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
1606 Further, it is recommended not to rely on implementation details for guile's
1607 current implementation of bignums. It is planned to replace this
1608 implementation with gmp in the future.
1610 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
1611 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
1612 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
1614 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
1615 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
1616 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
1617 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
1618 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
1619 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
1620 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
1622 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
1623 scm_end_input (object);
1624 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
1625 ptob->flush (object);
1627 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
1628 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
1631 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
1633 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
1635 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
1636 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
1637 removed in a future version.
1639 ** The format of error message strings has changed
1641 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
1642 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
1643 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
1644 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
1646 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
1647 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
1649 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
1652 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
1654 in your configure.in.
1656 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
1661 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
1667 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
1669 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
1673 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
1674 (define make-message string-append)
1676 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
1678 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
1682 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
1687 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
1691 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
1693 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
1694 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
1696 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
1698 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
1699 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
1700 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
1701 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
1702 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
1703 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
1705 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
1706 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
1707 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
1709 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
1710 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
1711 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
1714 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
1715 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
1716 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
1717 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
1718 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
1720 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
1721 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
1722 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
1723 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
1724 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
1725 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
1726 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
1728 Destructors are not yet implemented.
1730 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
1731 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
1732 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
1734 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
1735 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
1736 KEY in the calling thread.
1738 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
1739 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
1740 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
1741 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
1742 associated with the key.
1744 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
1746 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
1747 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
1749 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
1751 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
1752 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
1753 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
1755 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
1757 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
1758 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
1760 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
1762 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
1764 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
1765 returned is undefined.
1767 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
1768 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
1769 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
1771 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
1772 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
1773 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
1775 ** New C level GC hooks
1777 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
1779 scm_before_gc_c_hook
1782 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
1783 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
1784 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
1786 scm_before_mark_c_hook
1787 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
1788 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
1790 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
1791 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
1794 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
1796 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
1797 allocation parameters
1799 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
1800 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
1801 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
1805 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
1806 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
1807 scm_default_max_segment_size
1809 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
1811 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
1812 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
1814 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
1816 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
1817 object and count on the object being protected until
1818 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
1820 The functions also have better time complexity.
1822 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
1823 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
1824 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
1825 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
1826 are no longer needed.
1828 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
1830 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
1831 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
1832 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
1833 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
1835 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
1837 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
1839 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
1841 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
1842 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
1843 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
1844 until this issue has been settled.
1846 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
1848 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
1850 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
1853 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
1855 * Changes to system call interfaces:
1857 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
1858 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
1859 descriptors were checked.
1861 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
1862 atomically written to a pipe.
1864 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
1865 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
1866 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
1867 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
1868 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
1869 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
1870 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
1873 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
1874 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
1875 is changed without calling tzset.
1877 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
1879 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
1880 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
1881 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
1883 (define write-network-long
1884 (lambda (value port)
1885 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
1886 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
1887 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
1889 (define read-network-long
1891 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
1892 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
1893 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
1895 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
1896 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
1898 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
1899 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
1900 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
1901 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
1903 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
1904 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
1905 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
1906 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
1910 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
1912 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1916 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
1917 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
1918 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
1924 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
1925 for a description of available commands.
1927 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
1928 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
1929 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
1931 (debug-enable 'backwards)
1933 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
1934 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
1936 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
1938 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
1940 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
1941 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
1942 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
1943 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
1944 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
1945 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
1948 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
1950 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
1951 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
1952 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
1953 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
1955 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
1956 the file and should not be affected by this change.
1958 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
1960 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1962 ** Readline support has changed again.
1964 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
1965 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
1966 to activate readline is now
1968 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
1971 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
1973 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
1974 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
1975 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
1978 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
1979 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
1980 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
1983 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
1984 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
1985 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
1986 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
1987 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
1988 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
1990 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
1991 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
1993 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
1995 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
1996 object it receives is the same string passed to
1997 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
1998 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
1999 string, not the suffix.
2001 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
2002 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
2003 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
2005 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
2007 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
2008 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
2009 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
2010 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
2013 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2015 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
2017 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
2018 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
2019 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
2020 appear from left to right.
2022 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
2025 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
2027 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
2028 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
2030 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2034 *** New function: hook? OBJ
2036 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
2038 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
2040 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
2041 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
2042 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
2044 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
2046 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
2048 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
2050 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
2053 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
2055 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
2056 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
2057 mentioning it here anyway.
2059 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
2061 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
2062 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
2063 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
2064 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
2067 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
2069 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
2071 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
2073 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
2074 otherwise return #f.
2076 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
2078 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
2079 returned by `opendir'.
2081 ** New function: using-readline?
2083 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
2085 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
2087 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
2088 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
2090 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2092 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
2094 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
2095 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
2096 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
2098 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
2100 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
2101 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
2103 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
2105 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
2106 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
2107 documentation slots are not yet used.
2109 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
2111 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
2112 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
2113 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
2118 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
2119 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
2120 (string-append x y))
2122 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
2123 can also be used for concatenating strings.
2125 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
2126 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
2127 be made in a clean way.]
2129 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
2131 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
2133 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
2135 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
2136 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
2138 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2140 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
2142 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
2144 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
2146 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
2147 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
2148 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
2149 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
2152 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2154 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
2156 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
2158 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
2160 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
2161 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
2163 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2165 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
2167 Evaluates the body of a special form.
2169 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
2171 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
2172 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
2173 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
2174 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
2175 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
2176 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
2178 This should not make any difference for most users.
2180 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
2182 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
2183 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
2185 *** New functions for applying generic functions
2187 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
2188 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
2189 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
2190 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
2191 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
2193 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
2195 It is now replaced by:
2197 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
2199 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
2200 binds a variable named NAME to it.
2202 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
2204 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
2205 This might change when we get the new module system.
2207 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
2211 Changes since Guile 1.3:
2213 * Changes to mailing lists
2215 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
2217 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
2220 * Changes to the distribution
2222 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
2224 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
2225 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
2226 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
2227 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
2228 you explicitly specify it.
2230 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
2231 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
2232 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
2233 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
2234 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
2237 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
2238 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
2239 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
2240 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
2242 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
2243 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
2244 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
2247 You can activate the readline support by issuing
2249 (use-modules (readline-activator))
2252 from your ".guile" file, for example.
2254 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2256 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
2257 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
2258 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
2259 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
2261 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
2262 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
2265 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2267 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
2268 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
2269 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
2270 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
2271 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
2272 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
2273 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
2274 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
2286 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
2287 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
2288 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
2289 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
2290 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
2295 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
2296 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
2304 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
2309 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
2310 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
2313 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
2314 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
2315 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
2316 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
2318 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
2320 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
2322 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
2323 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
2325 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
2327 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
2329 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
2330 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
2332 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
2335 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
2337 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
2339 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
2341 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
2343 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
2345 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
2347 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
2348 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
2349 when the hook was created.
2351 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
2352 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
2353 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
2354 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
2355 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
2356 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
2357 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
2358 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
2359 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
2361 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
2362 the dlopen family of functions.
2364 ** New function `provided?'
2366 - Function: provided? FEATURE
2367 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
2368 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
2369 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
2371 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
2373 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
2374 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
2375 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
2376 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
2379 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
2380 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
2381 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
2382 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
2384 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
2385 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
2386 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
2389 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
2390 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
2391 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
2392 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
2393 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
2394 but with the flag set.
2396 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
2398 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
2399 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
2401 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
2402 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
2403 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
2404 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
2405 available Scheme format implementations.
2407 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
2408 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
2409 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
2410 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
2411 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
2412 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
2413 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
2414 output is to the current error port if available by the
2415 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
2418 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
2419 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
2420 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
2421 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
2422 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
2423 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
2424 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
2425 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
2427 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
2428 be executed at a time.
2431 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
2433 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
2434 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
2435 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
2437 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
2438 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
2439 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
2440 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
2441 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
2442 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
2443 general form of a directive is:
2445 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
2447 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
2449 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
2451 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
2452 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
2453 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
2456 Any (print as `display' does).
2460 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
2464 S-expression (print as `write' does).
2468 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
2474 print number sign always.
2477 print comma separated.
2479 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
2485 print number sign always.
2488 print comma separated.
2490 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
2496 print number sign always.
2499 print comma separated.
2501 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
2507 print number sign always.
2510 print comma separated.
2512 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
2517 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
2521 print a number as a Roman numeral.
2524 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
2527 print a number as an ordinal English number.
2530 print a number as a cardinal English number.
2535 prints `y' and `ies'.
2538 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
2541 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
2546 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
2550 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
2553 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
2554 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
2556 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2559 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
2560 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
2562 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2565 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
2567 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
2569 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2572 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
2574 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
2576 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2579 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
2582 The sign appears before the padding.
2590 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
2592 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
2597 print N page separators.
2607 newline is ignored, white space left.
2610 newline is left, white space ignored.
2615 relative tabulation.
2621 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
2623 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
2626 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
2628 converts by `string-capitalize'.
2631 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
2634 converts by `string-upcase'.
2637 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
2639 jumps N arguments forward.
2642 jumps 1 argument backward.
2645 jumps N arguments backward.
2648 jumps to the 0th argument.
2651 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
2653 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
2654 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
2656 take argument from N.
2659 true test conditional.
2662 if-else-then conditional.
2668 default clause follows.
2671 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
2673 at most N iterations.
2676 args from next arg (a list of lists).
2679 args from the rest of arguments.
2682 args from the rest args (lists).
2693 aborts if N <= M <= K
2695 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
2698 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
2701 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
2707 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
2709 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
2711 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
2712 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
2713 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
2714 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
2715 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
2716 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
2720 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
2724 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
2730 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
2733 Print a `#\space' character
2735 print N `#\space' characters.
2738 Print a `#\tab' character
2740 print N `#\tab' characters.
2743 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
2744 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
2745 must be a positive decimal number.
2748 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
2749 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
2750 be processed by `read'.
2753 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
2754 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
2755 be processed by `read'.
2758 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
2761 prints format version.
2764 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
2765 and format it accordingly.
2767 *** Configuration Variables
2769 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
2770 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
2771 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
2772 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
2775 format:symbol-case-conv
2776 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
2777 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
2778 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
2779 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
2780 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
2782 format:iobj-case-conv
2783 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
2784 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
2787 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
2790 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
2796 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
2797 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
2798 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
2799 `format' padding style.
2802 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
2803 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
2804 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
2805 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
2809 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
2810 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
2811 directive parameters or modifiers)).
2814 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
2815 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
2816 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
2817 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
2818 parameters or modifiers)).
2821 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
2823 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
2825 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
2826 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
2828 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
2829 string-downcase! functions.
2831 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
2832 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
2834 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
2837 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
2840 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
2841 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
2843 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
2845 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
2846 the symbol had be read by `read'.
2848 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
2849 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
2850 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
2851 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
2852 would if STRING were input.
2854 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
2856 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
2857 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
2858 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
2859 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
2862 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
2864 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
2865 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
2868 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
2870 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
2871 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
2873 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
2874 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
2876 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
2877 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
2878 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
2879 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
2881 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
2882 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
2884 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
2885 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
2886 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
2888 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
2889 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
2891 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
2892 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
2893 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
2894 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
2895 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
2897 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
2898 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
2899 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
2900 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
2901 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
2902 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
2904 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
2905 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
2906 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
2909 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
2910 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
2911 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
2912 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
2913 the following grammar:
2914 ((apples (single-char #\a))
2915 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
2916 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
2917 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
2918 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
2919 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
2920 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
2921 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
2922 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
2923 last option in its combination)
2925 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
2926 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
2927 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
2928 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
2930 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
2931 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
2932 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
2934 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
2935 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
2936 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
2938 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
2939 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
2940 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
2941 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
2942 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
2943 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
2944 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
2945 ordinary argument strings.
2947 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
2948 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
2949 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
2950 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
2952 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
2953 as a list, associated with the empty list.
2955 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
2956 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
2957 - a required option is omitted
2958 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
2959 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
2960 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
2961 - an option predicate fails
2966 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
2969 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
2970 (verbose (required? #f)
2973 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
2974 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
2975 (predicate ,string?))))
2977 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
2978 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
2980 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
2981 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
2982 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
2983 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
2986 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
2988 It will be removed in a few releases.
2990 ** New syntax: lambda*
2991 ** New syntax: define*
2992 ** New syntax: define*-public
2993 ** New syntax: defmacro*
2994 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
2995 Guile now supports optional arguments.
2997 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
2998 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
2999 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
3000 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
3001 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
3003 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
3004 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
3005 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
3007 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
3009 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
3010 and examples for `lambda*':
3013 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
3015 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
3016 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
3017 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
3018 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
3019 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
3020 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
3021 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
3022 can be checked with the bound? macro.
3024 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
3026 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
3027 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
3028 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
3029 are given as keywords are bound to values.
3031 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
3032 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
3033 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
3034 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
3035 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
3036 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
3037 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
3038 and until the procedure is called.
3040 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
3042 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
3043 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
3044 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
3045 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
3046 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
3047 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
3048 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
3049 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
3050 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
3051 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
3053 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
3054 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
3055 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
3056 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
3059 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
3061 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
3062 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
3063 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
3064 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
3066 ** New syntax: and-let*
3067 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
3069 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
3070 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
3071 (<variable> <expression>)
3074 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
3075 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
3076 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
3079 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
3080 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
3081 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
3082 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
3083 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
3084 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
3085 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
3087 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
3088 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
3089 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
3090 shadow earlier bindings.
3092 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
3094 ** New sorting functions
3096 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
3097 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
3098 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
3099 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
3101 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
3102 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
3105 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
3106 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
3107 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
3109 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
3110 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
3111 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
3112 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
3114 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
3115 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
3116 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
3117 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
3118 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
3121 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
3122 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
3123 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
3124 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
3125 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
3126 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
3128 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
3129 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
3130 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
3132 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
3133 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
3134 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
3137 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
3138 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
3139 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
3141 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
3142 Added for compatibility with scsh.
3144 ** New built-in random number support
3146 *** New function: random N [STATE]
3147 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
3148 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
3149 returned have a uniform distribution.
3151 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
3152 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
3153 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
3154 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
3155 effect of the `random' operation.
3157 *** New variable: *random-state*
3158 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
3159 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
3160 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
3161 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
3162 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
3165 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
3166 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
3167 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
3168 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
3169 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
3171 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
3172 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
3173 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
3174 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
3175 initialized using SEED.
3177 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
3178 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
3179 range between 0 and 1.
3181 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
3182 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
3183 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
3184 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
3185 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
3186 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
3187 or a uniform vector of doubles.
3189 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
3190 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
3191 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
3192 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
3193 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
3194 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
3196 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
3197 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
3198 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
3199 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
3201 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
3202 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
3203 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
3204 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
3206 *** New function: random:exp STATE
3207 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
3208 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
3210 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
3212 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
3215 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
3216 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
3219 ** New function: make-guardian
3220 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
3221 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
3222 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
3223 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
3224 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
3226 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
3227 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
3228 one object if at all.
3230 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
3231 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
3232 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
3234 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
3235 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
3236 read again in last-in first-out order.
3238 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
3239 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
3241 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
3243 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
3244 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
3245 file position is used.
3247 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
3248 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
3249 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
3251 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
3252 redefined using seek.
3254 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
3255 size is not supplied.
3257 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
3258 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
3260 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
3261 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
3263 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
3265 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
3266 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
3267 and returns the contents as a single string.
3269 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
3270 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
3271 lists in serial order.
3273 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
3274 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
3275 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
3277 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
3278 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
3279 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
3280 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
3282 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
3283 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
3284 and #f if an error occured.
3286 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
3288 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
3289 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
3290 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
3291 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
3293 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
3295 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
3298 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
3300 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
3303 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3307 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
3308 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
3310 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
3311 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
3315 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3317 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
3319 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3320 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3322 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3324 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
3325 might change when we get the new module system.
3327 ** The smob interface
3329 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
3330 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
3332 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
3334 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
3338 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
3339 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
3340 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
3341 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
3342 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
3343 will be freed by the default free function.
3345 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
3346 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
3347 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3348 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3350 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
3351 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
3352 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3353 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3355 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
3357 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
3358 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
3362 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
3363 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3364 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3366 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
3367 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
3368 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3369 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3371 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
3372 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
3373 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
3375 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
3376 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
3377 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
3378 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
3380 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
3381 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
3382 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
3384 *** scm_newptob has been removed
3388 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
3390 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
3391 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
3392 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
3394 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
3395 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
3396 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
3398 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
3399 a string port's buffer.
3401 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
3402 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
3403 function pointers which together define the current random number
3404 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
3405 number library functions.
3407 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
3410 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
3411 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
3414 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
3415 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
3417 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
3418 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
3420 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
3421 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
3424 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
3425 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
3426 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
3427 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
3429 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
3430 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
3431 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
3432 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
3433 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
3434 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
3435 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
3437 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
3438 by libguile and the application.
3440 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
3441 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
3442 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
3443 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
3445 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
3446 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
3448 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
3449 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
3450 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
3452 ** Random number library functions
3453 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
3454 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
3455 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
3457 The default random state is stored in:
3459 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
3460 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
3461 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
3466 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
3468 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
3469 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
3470 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
3471 isn't a random state.
3473 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
3474 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
3476 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
3477 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
3478 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
3479 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
3481 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3482 Return 32 random bits.
3484 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3485 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
3487 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3488 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
3490 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3491 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
3493 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
3494 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
3496 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
3497 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
3498 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
3502 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
3504 * Changes to the distribution
3506 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
3507 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
3508 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
3511 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
3512 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
3513 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
3515 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
3516 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
3517 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
3518 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
3521 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
3522 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
3523 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
3525 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3527 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
3529 *** Function: batch-mode?
3531 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
3534 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
3536 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
3537 case has not been implemented.
3539 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
3540 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
3541 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
3544 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
3545 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
3547 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
3549 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
3551 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
3553 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
3554 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
3557 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
3558 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
3559 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
3560 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
3563 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
3565 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
3566 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
3567 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
3568 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
3569 find those libraries.
3571 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
3572 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
3575 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
3577 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
3578 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
3579 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
3580 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
3582 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
3583 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
3584 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
3588 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
3590 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
3591 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
3592 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
3595 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
3596 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
3597 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
3598 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
3600 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
3601 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
3604 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
3605 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
3606 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
3607 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
3608 compiler where to find the libraries.
3610 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
3611 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
3612 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
3614 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
3615 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
3616 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
3617 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
3618 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
3622 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3624 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
3625 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
3626 internationalization support.
3628 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
3629 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
3630 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
3631 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
3632 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
3634 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
3635 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
3636 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
3637 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
3638 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
3640 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
3641 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
3642 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
3643 any GNU mirror site.
3645 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
3647 ** New function: add-history STRING
3648 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
3649 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
3650 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
3652 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
3654 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
3655 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
3656 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
3659 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
3660 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
3661 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
3663 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
3665 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
3668 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
3669 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
3672 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
3673 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
3674 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
3675 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
3676 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
3677 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
3679 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
3680 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
3681 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
3682 of the form mentioned above.
3684 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
3685 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
3686 returned in the special `rest' list.
3688 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
3689 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
3691 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
3693 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
3695 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
3697 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
3698 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
3699 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
3700 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
3701 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
3702 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
3703 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
3704 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
3707 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
3709 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
3711 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
3712 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
3715 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
3716 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
3717 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
3721 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
3722 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
3723 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
3724 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
3725 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
3726 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
3727 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
3728 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
3731 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
3733 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
3734 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
3735 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
3737 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
3739 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
3740 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
3742 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
3743 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
3744 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
3746 Why do we have this function?
3747 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
3748 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
3749 primitive, and display it differently, and
3750 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
3751 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
3754 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
3755 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
3758 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
3759 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
3760 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
3761 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
3763 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
3764 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
3767 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
3768 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
3770 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
3772 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
3773 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
3774 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
3775 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
3776 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
3777 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
3778 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
3781 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
3783 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
3784 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
3786 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
3787 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
3788 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
3789 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
3790 properly continue the print chain.
3792 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
3793 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
3794 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
3795 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
3796 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
3797 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
3798 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
3799 print-state, it is simply ignored.
3801 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
3802 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
3803 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
3804 safest to not check for these pairs.
3806 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
3807 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
3808 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
3809 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
3811 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
3813 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
3814 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
3816 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
3818 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
3820 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
3821 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
3822 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
3824 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
3825 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
3826 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
3828 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
3829 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
3830 the following functions and macros:
3832 Function: make-fluid
3834 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
3835 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
3836 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
3837 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
3838 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
3840 Function: fluid? OBJ
3842 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
3844 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
3845 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
3847 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
3848 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
3850 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
3852 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
3853 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
3854 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
3855 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
3856 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
3857 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
3858 modified by `with-fluids*'.
3860 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
3862 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
3863 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
3864 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
3865 should evaluate to a fluid.
3867 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
3869 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
3870 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
3871 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
3872 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
3873 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
3875 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
3878 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
3880 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
3882 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
3884 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
3887 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
3888 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
3889 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
3890 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
3891 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
3894 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
3895 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
3896 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
3898 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
3899 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
3900 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
3902 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
3903 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
3904 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
3905 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
3907 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
3908 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
3909 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
3910 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
3912 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
3913 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
3914 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
3915 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
3917 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
3918 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
3919 their revealed counts set to zero.
3921 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3922 Returns an integer file descriptor.
3924 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3925 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
3927 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3928 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
3930 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3931 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
3932 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
3934 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
3935 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
3936 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
3938 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
3939 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
3940 default environment inherited by child processes.
3942 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
3943 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
3944 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
3946 The return value is unspecified.
3948 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
3949 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
3950 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
3951 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
3952 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
3954 The return value is unspecified.
3956 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
3957 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
3965 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
3966 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
3969 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
3972 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
3973 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
3974 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
3976 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
3977 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
3978 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
3979 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
3982 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
3983 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
3985 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
3986 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
3987 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
3988 the `environ' procedure.
3990 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
3991 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
3994 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
3995 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
3997 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
3998 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
3999 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
4000 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
4002 *** procedure: times
4003 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
4004 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
4005 return a selected component:
4008 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
4012 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
4015 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
4019 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
4020 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
4024 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
4025 terminated child processes.
4027 ** Removed: list-length
4028 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
4029 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
4031 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
4033 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
4035 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
4037 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
4038 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
4039 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
4040 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
4042 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
4043 extra complexity it introduces.
4045 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
4046 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
4048 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
4049 variable to any non-empty value.
4051 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
4052 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
4054 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4056 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
4057 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
4059 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
4061 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
4062 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
4064 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
4066 ** vector handling routines
4068 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
4069 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
4070 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
4071 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
4072 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
4074 ** pair and list routines
4076 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
4079 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
4081 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
4084 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4086 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
4088 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
4089 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
4090 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
4091 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
4092 site-specific initialization code.
4094 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
4095 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
4096 initialization processes.
4098 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
4099 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
4100 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
4101 initialized properly.
4103 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
4104 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
4105 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
4107 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
4108 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
4109 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
4110 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
4111 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
4113 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
4115 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
4116 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
4117 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
4118 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
4119 objects the smob refers to get marked.
4121 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
4122 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
4123 which look like this:
4126 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
4128 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
4129 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
4132 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
4133 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
4136 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
4138 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
4139 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
4140 you will need to change your functions slightly.
4142 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
4143 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
4144 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
4145 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
4146 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
4148 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
4149 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
4151 int (*free) (SCM port);
4152 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
4153 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
4154 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
4158 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
4159 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
4160 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
4162 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
4165 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
4166 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
4167 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
4169 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
4170 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
4171 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
4174 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
4178 struct timeval *timeout);
4180 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
4181 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
4182 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
4183 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
4184 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
4185 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
4187 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
4188 scm_catch_body_t body,
4190 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
4193 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
4194 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
4195 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
4196 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
4197 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
4198 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
4200 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
4202 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
4205 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
4206 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
4207 spawning threads from application C code.
4209 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
4210 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
4211 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
4212 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
4213 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
4214 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
4216 ** Removed functions:
4218 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
4219 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
4221 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
4223 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
4224 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
4226 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
4228 ** mbstrings are now removed
4230 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
4231 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
4233 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
4235 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
4236 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
4237 their new names and arguments:
4239 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
4240 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
4241 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
4242 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
4245 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
4247 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
4249 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
4252 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
4254 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
4255 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
4256 pass a #f arg to catch.
4258 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
4260 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
4261 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
4264 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
4265 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
4266 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
4267 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
4268 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
4269 reclaim its storage.
4271 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
4272 worrying that some other function you call will call
4273 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
4274 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
4275 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
4276 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
4279 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
4281 * Changes to the distribution
4283 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
4284 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
4287 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
4288 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
4290 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4291 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4293 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
4295 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
4296 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
4297 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
4299 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4301 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
4302 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
4303 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
4304 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
4305 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
4306 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
4308 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
4309 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
4310 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
4313 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
4314 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
4315 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
4316 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
4318 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
4319 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
4320 libraries to your link command:
4322 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
4323 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
4324 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
4325 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
4327 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
4328 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
4329 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
4331 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4333 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
4334 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
4337 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
4339 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
4340 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
4341 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
4342 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
4343 searched is system dependent.
4345 (dynamic-object? VAL)
4347 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
4349 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
4351 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
4352 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
4354 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
4356 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
4357 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
4358 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
4359 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
4360 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
4363 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
4365 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
4366 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
4367 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
4368 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
4369 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
4371 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
4373 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
4374 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
4376 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
4378 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
4379 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
4380 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
4383 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
4385 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
4386 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
4387 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
4388 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
4390 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
4391 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
4393 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
4395 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
4396 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
4398 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
4400 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
4401 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
4409 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
4411 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
4412 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
4413 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
4414 a more informative way.
4416 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
4417 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
4418 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
4419 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
4420 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
4421 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
4423 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
4424 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
4427 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
4428 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
4429 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
4432 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
4433 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
4434 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
4435 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
4436 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
4437 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
4439 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
4440 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
4441 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
4442 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
4445 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
4446 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
4447 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
4448 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
4449 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
4450 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
4452 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
4453 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
4454 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
4455 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
4456 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
4458 *** regexp functions
4460 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
4461 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
4462 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
4464 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
4465 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
4466 with SCSH regular expressions.
4468 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
4469 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
4470 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
4471 position of STR at which to begin matching.
4473 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
4474 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
4475 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
4476 `string-match' returns `#f'.
4478 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
4479 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
4480 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
4481 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
4482 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
4483 match strings against the compiled regexp.
4485 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
4486 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
4487 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
4488 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
4489 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
4491 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
4493 **** Constant: regexp/extended
4494 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
4495 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
4496 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
4498 **** Constant: regexp/icase
4499 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
4500 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
4502 **** Constant: regexp/newline
4503 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
4505 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
4508 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
4509 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
4510 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
4512 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
4513 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
4514 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
4516 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
4517 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
4518 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
4519 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
4520 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
4523 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
4525 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
4526 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
4527 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
4528 used when different portions of a string are passed to
4529 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
4530 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
4532 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
4533 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
4534 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
4536 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
4537 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
4540 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
4541 and replace them with the contents of another string.
4543 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
4544 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
4545 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
4546 may be one of the following arguments:
4548 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
4550 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
4552 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
4553 the regexp match is written.
4555 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
4556 following the regexp match is written.
4558 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
4559 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
4562 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
4563 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
4564 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
4565 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
4566 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
4567 which should be matched against this regular expression.
4569 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
4572 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
4573 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
4574 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
4575 written out to PORT.
4577 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
4578 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
4579 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
4580 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
4581 will return after processing a single match.
4583 *** Match Structures
4585 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
4586 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
4587 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
4588 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
4589 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
4590 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
4593 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
4594 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
4595 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
4596 information about the original target string that was matched against a
4597 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
4599 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
4600 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
4601 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
4603 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
4604 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
4605 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
4606 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
4607 number N did not match, return `#f'.
4609 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
4610 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
4612 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
4613 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
4615 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
4616 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
4618 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
4619 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
4621 **** Function: match:count MATCH
4622 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
4623 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
4624 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
4626 **** Function: match:string MATCH
4627 Return the original TARGET string.
4629 *** Backslash Escapes
4631 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
4632 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
4633 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
4634 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
4635 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
4636 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
4638 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
4639 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
4640 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
4641 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
4642 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
4643 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
4644 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
4645 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
4647 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
4648 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
4649 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
4650 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
4651 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
4652 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
4653 each match a single backslash in the target string.
4655 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
4656 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
4657 return the resulting string.
4659 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
4660 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
4661 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
4662 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
4663 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
4664 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
4665 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
4666 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
4667 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
4668 translated to the single character `*'.
4670 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
4671 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
4672 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
4673 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
4674 consecutive backslashes:
4676 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
4678 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
4679 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
4680 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
4682 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
4683 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
4684 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
4685 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
4686 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
4687 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
4689 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
4691 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
4692 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
4693 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
4694 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
4695 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
4696 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
4697 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
4698 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
4699 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
4700 cumbersome escape syntax.
4702 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4704 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4706 * Changes to system call interfaces:
4708 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
4711 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
4713 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
4715 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
4718 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
4719 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
4720 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
4721 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
4722 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
4724 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
4725 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
4726 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
4727 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
4728 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
4729 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
4730 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
4733 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
4734 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
4735 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
4738 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
4739 `force-output' on every port open for output.
4741 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
4742 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
4743 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
4744 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
4745 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
4746 installed, you can say:
4748 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
4751 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4753 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
4754 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
4755 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
4756 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
4757 new dynamic roots and threads.
4760 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
4762 * Changes to the distribution.
4764 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
4766 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
4767 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
4768 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
4769 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
4770 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
4771 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
4772 programming language. These are packaged together because the
4773 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
4775 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
4778 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
4779 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
4784 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4786 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
4787 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
4789 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
4790 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
4791 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
4792 the (command-line) function.
4793 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
4794 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
4795 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
4797 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
4798 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
4799 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
4800 command line arguments
4801 -ds do -s script at this point
4802 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
4803 -h, --help display this help and exit
4804 -v, --version display version information and exit
4805 \ read arguments from following script lines
4807 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
4808 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
4810 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
4813 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
4817 (main (command-line))
4819 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
4821 ekko a speckled gecko
4823 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
4824 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
4825 following list of command-line arguments:
4827 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
4829 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
4830 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
4831 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
4832 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
4833 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
4835 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
4837 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
4839 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
4840 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
4843 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
4844 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
4845 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
4846 SCSH) for circumventing them.
4848 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
4849 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
4850 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
4851 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
4853 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
4857 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
4861 If the user invokes this script as follows:
4863 ekko a speckled gecko
4865 Unix expands this into
4867 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
4869 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
4870 read from the second line of the script, producing:
4872 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
4874 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
4875 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
4877 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
4878 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
4879 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
4880 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
4881 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
4882 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
4883 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
4884 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
4885 it only terminates the argument list.)
4886 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
4887 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
4888 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
4889 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
4890 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
4891 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
4892 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
4893 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
4895 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4897 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
4898 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
4899 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
4900 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
4901 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
4903 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
4904 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
4905 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
4907 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
4909 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
4910 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
4911 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
4912 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
4915 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
4916 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
4917 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
4919 * Changes to Scheme functions
4921 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
4922 and disabled by default.
4924 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
4925 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
4926 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
4927 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
4929 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
4931 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
4933 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
4934 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
4936 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
4937 (read-set! keywords #f)
4939 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
4940 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
4941 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
4944 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
4945 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
4946 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
4949 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
4950 support for Scheme functions.
4952 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
4953 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
4954 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
4955 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
4958 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
4959 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
4960 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
4963 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
4964 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
4965 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
4968 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
4969 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
4970 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
4971 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
4972 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
4973 display the result as a prompt.
4974 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
4976 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
4977 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
4978 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
4981 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
4982 procedure of zero arguments.
4984 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
4985 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
4986 argument is bound in the current module.
4988 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
4989 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
4990 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
4991 public bindings into the current module.
4993 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
4994 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
4996 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
4997 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
4999 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
5000 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
5002 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
5003 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
5005 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
5006 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
5008 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
5009 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
5010 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
5011 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
5012 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
5014 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
5015 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
5016 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
5017 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
5019 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
5022 ** Changes to I/O functions
5024 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
5025 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
5026 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
5028 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
5029 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
5030 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
5032 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
5033 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
5035 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
5036 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
5037 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
5038 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
5040 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
5042 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
5043 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
5045 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
5046 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
5047 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
5048 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
5049 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
5052 'trim omit delimiter from result
5053 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
5054 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
5055 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
5057 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
5059 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
5060 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
5062 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
5063 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
5064 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
5065 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
5066 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
5068 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
5069 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
5070 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
5072 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
5073 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
5074 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
5075 above, and defaults to 'peek.
5077 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
5078 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
5080 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
5081 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
5083 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
5085 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
5086 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
5087 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
5088 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
5089 a delimiting character.
5090 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
5092 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
5093 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
5094 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
5095 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
5096 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
5097 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
5099 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
5100 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
5102 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
5103 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
5104 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
5106 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
5107 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
5108 the array to read and write.
5110 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
5111 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
5114 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
5116 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
5119 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
5120 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
5121 Values for COMMAND are:
5123 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
5124 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
5125 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
5126 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
5127 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
5128 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
5129 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
5130 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
5132 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
5134 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
5135 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
5136 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
5137 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
5138 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
5139 corresponding return set will be the same.
5141 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
5144 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
5145 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
5146 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
5147 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
5148 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
5149 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
5150 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
5151 special file being created.
5153 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
5154 clashing with various SCSH forks.
5156 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
5157 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
5158 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
5159 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
5160 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
5161 and originating address.
5163 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
5164 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
5165 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
5167 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
5170 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
5171 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
5174 (status:exit-val STATUS)
5175 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
5176 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
5177 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
5178 this function returns #f.
5180 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
5181 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
5182 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
5185 (status:term-sig STATUS)
5186 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
5187 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
5190 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
5191 a valid STATUS value.
5193 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
5195 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
5196 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
5198 Component Accessor Setter
5199 ========================= ============ ============
5200 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
5201 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
5202 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
5203 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
5204 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
5205 year tm:year set-tm:year
5206 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
5207 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
5208 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
5209 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
5210 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
5212 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
5213 describing the host system:
5216 ============================================== ================
5217 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
5218 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
5219 release level of the operating system utsname:release
5220 version level of the operating system utsname:version
5221 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
5223 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
5224 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
5225 system's user database:
5228 ====================== =================
5229 user name passwd:name
5230 user password passwd:passwd
5233 real name passwd:gecos
5234 home directory passwd:dir
5235 shell program passwd:shell
5237 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
5238 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
5239 system's group database:
5242 ======================= ============
5243 group name group:name
5244 group password group:passwd
5246 group members group:mem
5248 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
5249 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
5253 ========================= ===============
5254 official name of host hostent:name
5255 alias list hostent:aliases
5256 host address type hostent:addrtype
5257 length of address hostent:length
5258 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
5260 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
5261 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
5265 ========================= ===============
5266 official name of net netent:name
5267 alias list netent:aliases
5268 net number type netent:addrtype
5269 net number netent:net
5271 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
5272 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
5276 ========================= ===============
5277 official protocol name protoent:name
5278 alias list protoent:aliases
5279 protocol number protoent:proto
5281 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
5282 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
5286 ========================= ===============
5287 official service name servent:name
5288 alias list servent:aliases
5289 port number servent:port
5290 protocol to use servent:proto
5292 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
5293 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
5296 ======================================== ===============
5297 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
5298 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
5299 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
5300 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
5302 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
5303 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
5304 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
5306 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
5307 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
5309 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
5310 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
5312 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
5313 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
5315 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
5317 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
5319 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
5320 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
5321 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
5323 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
5324 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
5325 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
5326 return the remaining characters as a string.
5328 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
5329 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
5330 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
5332 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
5334 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5336 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
5339 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
5342 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
5343 and returns the array
5345 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
5346 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
5347 the user to interpret the data both ways.
5349 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5351 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
5352 symbol's value from C code:
5354 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
5355 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
5356 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
5357 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
5359 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
5360 without assigning them a value.
5362 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
5363 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
5364 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
5366 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
5367 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
5368 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
5370 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
5371 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
5373 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
5374 doesn't actually care about that.
5376 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
5377 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
5378 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
5380 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
5381 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
5382 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
5383 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
5384 which we have just created and initialized.
5386 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
5387 should one occur. We call it like this:
5388 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
5390 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
5391 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
5392 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
5393 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
5394 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
5395 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
5398 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
5399 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
5400 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
5401 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
5402 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
5403 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
5404 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
5407 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
5408 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
5409 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
5410 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
5411 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
5414 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
5415 scm_internal_catch, except:
5417 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
5418 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
5419 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
5420 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
5423 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
5424 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
5425 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
5427 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
5428 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
5429 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
5430 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
5433 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
5434 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
5435 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
5437 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
5438 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
5439 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
5440 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
5441 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
5443 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
5444 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
5445 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
5447 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
5448 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
5449 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
5451 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
5452 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
5454 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
5455 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
5456 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
5459 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
5460 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
5461 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
5462 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
5463 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
5464 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
5465 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
5468 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
5469 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
5471 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
5472 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
5473 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
5474 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
5475 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
5478 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
5479 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
5481 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
5482 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
5485 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
5486 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
5488 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5491 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
5492 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
5493 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
5494 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
5495 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
5496 given the following arguments:
5498 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
5500 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
5502 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
5504 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5507 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
5508 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
5509 command-line arguments.
5511 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
5512 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
5513 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
5514 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
5515 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
5516 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
5519 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5522 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
5523 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
5525 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
5526 rearranged slightly. They are now:
5528 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5529 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
5530 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
5531 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
5533 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5534 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
5536 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5537 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
5538 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
5539 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
5541 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5542 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
5544 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
5545 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
5547 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
5549 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
5550 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
5551 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
5554 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
5555 returns a port instead of an FD object.
5557 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
5558 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
5563 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
5566 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
5568 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
5569 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
5570 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
5571 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
5573 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
5575 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
5577 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
5578 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
5579 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
5580 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
5581 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
5582 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
5583 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
5584 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
5585 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
5586 for more information.
5588 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
5589 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
5591 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
5592 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
5593 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
5594 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
5595 following two lines at the top of the file:
5597 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5600 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
5601 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
5602 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
5604 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
5606 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5608 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
5611 (display (car args))
5612 (if (pair? (cdr args))
5614 (loop (cdr args)))))
5617 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
5618 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
5619 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
5620 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
5621 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
5622 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
5626 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
5629 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
5632 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
5634 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
5635 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
5636 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
5637 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
5638 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
5641 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
5642 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
5643 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
5644 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
5645 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
5648 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
5651 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
5652 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
5653 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
5656 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
5657 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
5658 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
5660 to see a backtrace, and
5661 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
5662 to see them by default.
5666 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
5668 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
5670 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
5671 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
5674 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
5675 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
5676 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
5677 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
5680 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
5681 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
5682 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
5683 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
5684 functions which inspired them.
5686 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
5687 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
5691 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
5693 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
5695 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
5696 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
5699 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
5700 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
5701 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
5703 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
5704 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
5705 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
5706 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
5707 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
5709 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
5711 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
5712 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
5713 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
5716 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
5719 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
5721 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
5722 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
5723 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
5724 above should serve their purposes.
5726 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
5727 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
5728 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
5729 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
5731 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
5734 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
5735 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
5736 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
5737 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
5739 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
5740 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
5741 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
5742 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
5744 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
5745 for the `read' function.
5748 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
5749 to that of `integer?'.
5751 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
5752 use the R4RS names for these functions.
5754 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
5755 it simply returns the object's property list.
5757 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
5758 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
5759 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
5760 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
5762 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
5764 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
5767 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
5769 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
5770 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
5772 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
5774 void (*main_func) (),
5777 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
5778 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
5779 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
5780 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
5781 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
5783 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
5784 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
5785 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
5786 know which arguments have been processed.
5788 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
5789 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
5790 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
5791 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
5792 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
5794 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
5795 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
5796 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
5797 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
5798 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
5799 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
5800 people from making that mistake.
5802 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
5803 convenient ways to override these when desired.
5805 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
5807 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
5811 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
5814 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
5815 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
5816 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
5817 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
5820 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
5821 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
5822 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
5823 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
5826 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
5827 have been added to the Guile library.
5829 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
5830 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
5831 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
5834 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
5835 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
5836 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
5838 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
5839 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
5840 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
5841 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
5842 argument from the list.
5845 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
5848 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
5849 null-terminated string, and returns it.
5851 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
5852 to a Scheme port object.
5854 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
5855 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
5860 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
5862 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
5863 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
5864 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
5865 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
5866 code as a special datatype.
5868 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
5869 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
5870 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
5871 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
5872 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
5875 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
5876 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
5877 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
5878 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
5879 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
5881 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
5884 Copyright information:
5886 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
5888 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
5889 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
5890 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
5891 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
5893 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
5894 of this document, or of portions of it,
5895 under the above conditions, provided also that they
5896 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
5901 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"