1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
7 Changes since the stable branch:
9 * Changes to the distribution
11 ** Guile now provide and uses an "effective" version number.
13 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
14 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
15 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
16 so the current effective-version is "1.6". The effective version
17 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
18 items like the versioned share directory name
19 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.6.
21 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
22 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
23 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
24 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
25 with each micro release during a stable series.
27 ** There are two new thread implementation options: "null" and "coop-pthreads".
29 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
30 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
31 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
32 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
33 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
36 The "coop-pthread" (or shorter: "copt") thread implementation will use
37 portable POSIX threads but will restrict them so that only one thread
38 can execute 'in Guile' at any one time. This option will give you the
39 same basic behavior as the old "coop" option, but hopefully in a more
42 The default is now "coop-pthread", unless your platform doesn't have
43 pthreads, in which case "null" threads are used.
45 ** Guile now includes its own version of libltdl.
47 We now use a modified version of libltdl that allows us to make
48 improvements to it without having to rely on libtool releases.
50 * Changes to the standalone interpreter
52 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
54 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
55 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
57 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
59 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
60 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
62 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
64 ** New function: effective-version
66 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
67 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
68 to the distribution" above.
70 ** Mutexes are now recursive.
72 Locking a mutex that you have already locked will now succeed. Every
73 call to lock-mutex must be matched with a call to unlock-mutex. Only
74 the last call to unlock-mutex will actually unlock the mutex.
76 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
78 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
79 instead if blocking and indicate failure.
81 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
83 The funtion 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
84 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
87 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
89 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
91 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
93 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
94 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
95 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
98 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
99 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
100 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
103 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
104 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
106 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
108 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
109 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
112 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
113 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
115 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
116 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
117 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
118 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
119 level for the current thread.
121 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
123 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
125 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
126 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
129 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
131 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
133 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
136 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
138 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
141 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
142 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
143 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
145 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
146 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
147 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
148 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
159 ERROR: Numerical overflow
161 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
164 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
166 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
167 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
168 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
179 ** We now have uninterned symbols.
181 The new function 'make-symbol' will return a uninterned symbol. This
182 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
183 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
185 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
188 ** pretty-print has more options.
190 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
191 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
192 maximum output width. See its online documentation.
194 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
196 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
197 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
198 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
200 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
202 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
203 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
205 ** Removed: substring-move-left!, substring-move-right!
207 Use `substring-move!' instead.
209 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
211 Change your code to use either procedure->memoizing-macro or, probably better,
212 to use r5rs macros. Also, be aware that macro expansion will not be done
213 during evaluation, but prior to evaluation.
215 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
217 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
218 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
219 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
220 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
221 without the soft port blocking.
223 ** New debugging feature: breakpoints.
225 Guile now has breakpoints. For details see the `Debugging Features'
226 chapter in the reference manual.
228 ** Deprecated: undefine
230 There is no replacement for undefine.
232 * Changes to the C interface
234 ** New function: scm_effective_version
236 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
237 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
238 to the distribution" above.
240 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
242 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
243 arguments are now passed directly:
245 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
247 This is an incompatible change.
249 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
251 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
252 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
253 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
255 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
256 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
258 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
260 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
262 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
263 function in the init section.
265 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
267 ** New macros SCM_VECTOR_REF and SCM_VECTOR_SET.
269 Use these in preference to SCM_VELTS.
271 ** The SCM_VELTS macros now returns a read-only vector. For writing,
272 use the new macros SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS or SCM_VECTOR_SET. The use of
273 SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS is discouraged, though.
275 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
277 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
278 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
279 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
280 stays roughly constant.
282 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
283 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
284 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
285 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
286 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
289 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
290 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
291 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
292 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
294 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
296 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
298 ** The struct scm_cell has been renamed to scm_t_cell
300 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
301 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
302 initializes a new cell (see below).
304 ** New functions for memory management
306 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
307 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
308 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
309 cause aborts in long running programs.
311 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
312 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
314 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
315 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
316 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
317 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
318 details and for upgrading instructions.
320 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
321 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
322 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
324 ** New function: scm_str2string
326 This function creates a scheme string from a 0-terminated C string. The input
329 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
331 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
332 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
333 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
334 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
335 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
337 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
338 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
339 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
341 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, QT_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
342 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
344 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
346 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old macros
347 had problems because with them allocation and initialization was separated and
348 the GC could sometimes observe half initialized cells. Only careful coding by
349 the user of SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
351 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
353 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
356 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
358 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
360 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
362 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or, probably better, to use r5rs
363 macros. Also, be aware that macro expansion will not be done during
364 evaluation, but prior to evaluation.
366 ** Removed from scm_root_state: def_inp, def_outp, def_errp, together
367 with corresponding macros scm_def_inp, scm_def_outp and scm_def_errp.
368 These were undocumented and unused copies of the standard ports at the
369 time that Guile was initialised. Normally the current ports should be
370 used instead, obtained from scm_current_input_port () etc. If an
371 application needs to retain earlier ports, it should save them in a
372 gc-protected location.
374 ** Removed compile time option MEMOIZE_LOCALS
376 Now, caching of local variable positions during memoization is mandatory.
377 However, the option to disable the caching has most probably not been used
380 ** Removed compile time option SCM_RECKLESS
382 Full number of arguments checking of closures is mandatory now. However, the
383 option to disable the checking has most probably not been used anyway.
385 ** Removed compile time option SCM_CAUTIOUS
387 Full number of arguments checking of closures is mandatory now. However, the
388 option to disable the checking has most probably not been used anyway.
390 ** Deprecated configure flags USE_THREADS and GUILE_ISELECT
392 Previously, when the C preprocessor macro USE_THREADS was defined,
393 libguile included a thread API. This API is now always included, even
394 when threads are not really supported. Thus, you don't need to test
397 Analogously, GUILE_ISELECT was defined when the function
398 scm_internal_select was provided by Guile. This function is now
399 always defined, and GUILE_ISELECT with it.
401 ** Removed definitions: scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify,
402 s_t_ify, scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
403 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, scm_tc16_allocated,
404 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY, SCM_IM_0_COND,
405 SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED, scm_debug_newcell,
406 scm_debug_newcell2, scm_substring_move_left_x, scm_substring_move_right_x,
407 long_long, ulong_long, scm_sizet, SCM_WNA, SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC,
408 SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL,
409 SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL,
410 SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, moddata, registered_mods,
411 scm_register_module_xxx, scm_registered_modules,
412 scm_clear_registered_modules, scm_wta, *top-level-lookup-closure*,
413 scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
414 scm_eval2, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR, SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR,
415 SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_GC8MARKP, SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK,
416 SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, scm_remember, scm_protect_object,
417 scm_unprotect_object, root_module_lookup_closure, scm_sym_app,
418 scm_sym_modules, module_prefix, make_modules_in_var,
419 beautify_user_module_x_var, try_module_autoload_var, scm_module_full_name,
420 scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module, scm_ensure_user_module,
421 scm_load_scheme_module, scm_port, scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_port_rw_active,
422 scm_close_all_ports_except, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_i_rstate,
423 SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_STRING_UCHARS, SCM_STRING_CHARS,
424 scm_read_only_string_p, scm_makstr, scm_makfromstr,
425 scm_make_shared_substring, scm_tc7_substring, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP,
426 SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP, scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
427 sym_huh, scm_variable_set_name_hint, scm_builtin_variable, SCM_VARVCELL,
428 SCM_UDVARIABLEP, SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_internal_with_fluids,
429 scm_make_gsubr, scm_make_gsubr_with_generic, scm_create_hook, list*,
430 SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4, SCM_LIST5,
431 SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9, scm_listify, scm_sloppy_memq,
432 scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member, scm_end_of_file_key,
433 scm_read_and_eval_x, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
434 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
435 scm_subr_entry, SCM_SUBR_DOC, scm_make_subr_opt, scm_make_subr,
436 scm_make_subr_with_generic, setjmp_type, setjmp_type,
437 scm_call_catching_errors, scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe,
438 scm_strprint_obj, scm_read_0str, scm_eval_0str, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
439 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
440 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
441 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR, scm_strhash,
442 scm_sym2vcell, scm_sym2ovcell_soft, scm_sym2ovcell,
443 scm_intern_obarray_soft, scm_intern_obarray, scm_intern, scm_intern0,
444 scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0, scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup,
445 scm_symbol_value0, scm_string_to_obarray_symbol, scm_intern_symbol,
446 scm_unintern_symbol, scm_symbol_binding, scm_symbol_interned_p,
447 scm_symbol_bound_p, scm_symbol_set_x, scm_gentemp,
448 scm_init_symbols_deprecated, s_vector_set_length_x, scm_vector_set_length_x,
449 scm_contregs, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_OPDIRP,
450 scm_fport, scm_option, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL,
451 SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT, scm_srcprops, scm_srcprops_chunk,
452 scm_info_frame, scm_stack, scm_array, scm_array_dim, SCM_ARRAY_CONTIGUOUS,
453 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA,
454 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY,
455 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
456 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
457 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int,
458 scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int,
459 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell,
460 SCM_ECONSP, SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
461 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable
463 Changes since Guile 1.4:
465 * Changes to the distribution
467 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
469 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
471 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
472 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
473 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
474 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
475 indicate major changes in Guile.
477 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
478 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
479 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
480 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
482 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
483 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
484 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
485 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
486 micro version number.
488 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
490 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
492 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
493 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
495 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
497 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
498 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
499 See INSTALL and README for more information.
501 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
503 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
504 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
505 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
508 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
510 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
513 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
515 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
516 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
518 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
520 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
521 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
524 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
526 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
529 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
532 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
534 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
536 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
537 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
538 open-output-string, get-output-string.
540 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
542 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
544 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
547 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
549 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
551 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
553 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
554 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
555 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
557 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
559 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
561 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
562 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
571 See README there for more info.
573 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
574 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
577 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
579 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
581 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
583 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
584 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
585 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
587 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
589 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
590 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
591 to be named `and-let*', of course.
593 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
594 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
596 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
601 (oop goops active-slot)
602 (oop goops composite-slot)
604 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
605 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
606 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
608 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
610 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
611 in the default environment:
613 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
614 %read-line write-line
616 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
617 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
619 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
621 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
624 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
625 can be used for similar functionality.
627 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
629 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
630 it defines two procedures:
632 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
634 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
635 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
636 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
639 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
641 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
642 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
643 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
646 ** New module (ice-9 match)
648 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
649 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
651 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
653 for complete documentation.
655 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
657 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
658 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
659 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
660 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
662 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
663 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
667 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
668 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
669 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
672 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
675 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
676 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
678 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
679 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
682 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
685 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
687 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
689 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
691 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
693 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
694 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
695 Scheme programs easier.
697 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
698 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
699 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
700 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
701 `cond-expand' when using this option.
704 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
705 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
707 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
710 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
712 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
713 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
714 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
717 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
719 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
721 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
722 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
723 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
724 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
725 was also ASCII, for example.
727 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
729 tag - no replacement.
730 fseek - replaced by seek.
731 list* - replaced by cons*.
733 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
737 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
738 (define m (make-safe-module))
739 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
740 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
741 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
743 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
745 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
746 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
747 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
749 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
751 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
752 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
753 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
754 from the issues related to the module system.
756 *** New function: load-extension
758 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
760 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
762 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
763 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
764 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
766 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
768 This function registers a initialization function for use by
769 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
770 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
771 support dynamic linking).
773 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
775 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
776 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
777 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
778 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
781 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
782 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
783 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
784 library and initialize it explicitely.
786 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
787 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
789 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
791 (define-module (foo bar))
793 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
795 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
797 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
798 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
800 (scheme-report-environment 5)
802 (interaction-environment)
808 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
810 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
811 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
812 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
813 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
815 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
816 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
817 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
818 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
819 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
820 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
821 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
822 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
823 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
824 one eval to the next.
826 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
827 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
828 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
829 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
830 subforms are at the top-level as well.
832 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
833 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
834 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
835 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
836 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
837 used in a lexical environment.
839 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
840 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
841 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
842 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
843 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
844 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
846 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
848 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
849 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
850 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
851 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
852 new facilities: selection and renaming.
854 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
855 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
856 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
858 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
859 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
861 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
862 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
863 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
866 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
868 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
869 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
870 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
871 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
874 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
875 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
876 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
877 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
880 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
881 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
883 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
884 ;; and all four by upcasing.
885 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
886 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
887 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
889 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
892 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
893 :renamer upcase-symbol))
895 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
896 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
897 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
899 See manual for more info.
901 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
903 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
904 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
905 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
907 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
909 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
910 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
911 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
913 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
914 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
915 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
916 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
918 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
920 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
921 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
923 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
924 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
925 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
926 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
927 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
930 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
931 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
932 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
933 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
934 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
935 successful and #f if it wasn't.
937 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
938 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
939 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
940 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
941 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
943 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
944 objects are usually permanent.
946 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
947 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
949 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
951 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
952 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
955 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
959 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
964 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
966 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
967 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
968 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
969 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
971 ** New function `make-object-property'
973 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
974 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
978 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
979 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
983 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
984 source properties eventually.
986 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
988 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
989 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
990 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
992 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
993 will be removed in the next release.
995 ** New define-module option: pure
997 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
1002 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
1005 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
1007 Export names NAME1 ...
1009 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
1010 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
1014 (define-module (foo)
1016 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
1019 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
1024 ** New function: object->string OBJ
1026 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
1028 ** New function: port? X
1030 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
1031 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
1033 ** New function: file-port?
1035 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
1037 ** New function: port-for-each proc
1039 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
1040 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
1041 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
1042 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
1043 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
1045 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
1047 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
1048 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
1049 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
1050 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
1051 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
1054 ** New function: close-fdes fd
1056 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
1057 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
1058 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
1059 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
1062 ** New function: crypt password salt
1064 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
1067 ** New function: chroot path
1069 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
1071 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
1073 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
1076 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
1078 Get or set the priority of the running process.
1080 ** New function: getpass prompt
1082 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
1085 ** New function: flock file operation
1087 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
1089 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
1091 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
1094 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
1096 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
1097 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
1098 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
1099 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
1100 of the temporary file.
1102 ** New function: open-input-string string
1104 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
1105 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
1106 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
1108 ** New function: open-output-string
1110 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
1111 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
1113 ** New function: get-output-string
1115 Return the contents of an output string port.
1117 ** New function: identity
1119 Return the argument.
1121 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
1122 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
1124 ** New function: inet-pton family address
1126 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
1127 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
1128 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1131 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
1132 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
1134 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
1136 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
1137 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
1138 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1141 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
1142 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
1143 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
1147 Use `identity' instead.
1153 ** Deprecated: return-it
1157 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
1159 Use `string-length' instead.
1161 ** Deprecated: flags
1163 Use `logior' instead.
1165 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
1167 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
1168 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
1169 port-for-each is more flexible.
1171 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
1172 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
1173 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
1175 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
1177 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
1179 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
1181 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
1183 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
1185 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
1186 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
1188 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
1189 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
1191 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
1192 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
1194 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
1196 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
1197 Removed function: builtin-bindings
1199 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
1200 Use module system operations for all variables.
1202 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
1204 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
1207 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
1209 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
1210 The following bugs have been fixed:
1212 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
1213 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
1216 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
1217 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
1218 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
1220 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
1221 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
1223 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
1224 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
1227 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
1228 The expansion used to be like so:
1230 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
1232 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
1234 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
1236 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
1237 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
1239 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
1241 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
1242 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
1243 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
1247 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
1248 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
1250 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
1255 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
1256 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
1258 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
1259 and `d', other keywords allowed.
1260 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
1262 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
1265 * Changes to the C interface
1267 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
1269 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
1270 with "_t". What a concept.
1272 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
1274 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
1276 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
1280 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
1281 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
1283 *** C Functions removed
1285 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
1286 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
1287 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
1288 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
1289 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
1290 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
1291 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
1293 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
1295 Use scm_mem2string instead.
1297 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
1299 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
1301 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
1302 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
1304 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
1306 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
1309 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
1311 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
1313 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
1315 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments.
1319 scm_call_1 (proc, arg1);
1321 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
1323 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list
1328 scm_apply_1 (proc, arg1, args);
1330 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
1332 Create a list of the given number of elements.
1334 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
1336 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
1337 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
1339 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
1341 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
1343 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
1344 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
1345 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
1347 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1349 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
1351 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
1352 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
1353 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
1356 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1358 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
1360 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
1361 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
1363 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
1365 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
1366 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
1367 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
1368 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
1370 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
1371 scm_primitive_property_ref
1372 scm_primitive_property_set_x
1373 scm_primitive_property_del_x
1375 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
1376 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
1378 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
1380 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
1381 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
1382 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
1383 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
1385 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
1387 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
1388 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
1389 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
1390 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
1391 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
1392 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
1393 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
1395 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
1396 scm_remember_upto_here
1398 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
1400 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
1402 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
1403 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
1405 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
1407 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
1409 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
1411 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
1413 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
1415 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
1416 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
1417 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
1418 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
1419 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
1420 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
1422 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
1424 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1426 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
1427 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1428 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
1430 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
1432 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
1433 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1434 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
1436 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
1438 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
1439 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
1442 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
1445 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
1446 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
1449 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1451 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
1453 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
1455 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1457 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
1459 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
1461 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
1462 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
1463 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
1464 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
1465 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
1466 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
1467 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
1468 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
1469 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
1470 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
1471 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
1472 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
1473 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
1474 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
1475 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
1477 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
1478 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
1479 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
1480 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
1481 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
1482 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
1483 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
1484 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
1485 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1486 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
1487 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
1488 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
1489 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
1490 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
1491 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
1492 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1493 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1494 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
1495 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
1496 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
1497 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
1498 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
1499 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
1500 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
1501 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
1502 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
1503 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
1504 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
1505 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
1507 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
1509 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
1511 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
1512 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
1514 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
1516 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
1518 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
1520 Use scm_string_hash instead.
1522 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
1524 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
1526 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
1528 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
1530 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
1533 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
1534 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
1536 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
1538 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
1540 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
1542 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
1544 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
1546 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
1548 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
1550 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
1553 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
1555 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
1557 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
1559 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
1560 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
1562 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
1563 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
1565 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
1567 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
1568 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
1569 scm_module_define, scm_define.
1571 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
1573 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
1575 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
1576 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
1578 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
1579 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
1580 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
1581 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
1583 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
1584 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
1585 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
1587 Use the new ones from above instead.
1589 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
1591 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
1592 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
1593 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
1595 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
1596 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
1598 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
1599 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
1602 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
1603 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
1605 Use the new functions instead.
1607 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
1610 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
1612 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
1614 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
1617 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
1619 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
1622 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
1624 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
1627 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
1628 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
1629 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
1631 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
1633 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
1634 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
1636 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
1637 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
1638 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
1639 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
1642 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
1644 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
1645 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
1646 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
1647 inexact for an exact.
1649 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
1650 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
1651 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
1654 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
1655 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
1656 accept an inexact argument.
1658 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
1659 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
1661 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
1664 ** New number validation macros:
1665 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
1669 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
1671 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
1672 scm_unprotect_object.
1674 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
1676 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
1678 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
1681 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
1683 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
1687 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
1689 * Changes to the distribution
1691 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
1693 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
1694 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
1695 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
1696 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
1697 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
1698 obtain these programs.
1699 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
1700 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
1702 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
1703 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
1704 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
1705 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
1706 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
1708 However, this approach means that minor differences between
1709 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
1710 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
1711 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
1715 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
1718 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
1719 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
1720 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
1721 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
1723 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
1725 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
1727 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
1728 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
1730 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
1731 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
1733 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
1734 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
1736 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
1737 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
1738 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
1739 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
1741 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
1743 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
1747 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
1748 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
1750 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
1752 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
1753 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
1755 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
1756 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
1757 number of objects of that kind.
1759 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
1761 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
1762 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
1763 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
1764 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
1765 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
1767 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
1769 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
1771 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
1773 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
1776 ** New module (ice-9 time)
1778 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
1780 ** New module (ice-9 history)
1782 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
1784 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1786 ** New command line option --debug
1788 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
1790 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
1792 ** New help facility
1794 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
1795 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
1796 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
1797 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
1798 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
1799 (help) gives this text
1801 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
1802 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
1804 Examples: (help help)
1806 (help "output-string")
1808 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
1810 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
1812 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
1813 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
1816 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
1817 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
1818 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
1821 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
1822 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
1823 use absolute filenames when possible.
1825 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
1826 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
1827 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
1830 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
1832 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
1833 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
1834 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
1835 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
1837 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
1839 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
1841 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
1842 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
1843 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
1845 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
1846 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
1847 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
1849 (read-enable 'positions)
1850 (debug-enable 'debug)
1852 ** Backtraces in scripts
1854 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
1858 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
1860 at the top of the script.
1862 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
1863 The second enables backtraces.)
1865 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
1867 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
1868 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
1869 substantially faster than before.
1871 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
1872 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
1874 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
1875 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
1877 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
1879 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
1880 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
1881 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
1883 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
1884 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
1885 when this hook is run in the future.
1887 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
1888 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
1890 ** Improvements to garbage collector
1892 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
1893 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
1896 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
1897 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
1898 more and more memory for certain programs.)
1900 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
1901 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
1903 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
1904 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
1906 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
1907 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
1908 in order not to need further allocation.)
1910 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
1913 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
1914 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
1915 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
1916 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
1918 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
1920 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
1923 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
1925 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
1928 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
1929 GC in percent of total heap size
1932 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
1933 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
1935 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
1937 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
1938 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
1940 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
1942 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
1943 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
1945 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
1947 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
1948 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
1952 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
1953 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
1955 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
1957 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1959 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
1961 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
1963 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
1965 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
1966 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
1968 (simple-format port message . args)
1969 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
1970 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
1971 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
1972 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
1973 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
1974 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
1975 Does not add a trailing newline."
1977 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
1979 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
1980 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
1982 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
1983 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
1985 ** Deprecated: list*
1987 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
1989 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
1991 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
1992 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
1994 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
1995 is returned as result.
1997 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
1999 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
2001 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
2003 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
2004 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
2007 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
2009 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
2011 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
2012 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
2014 * Changes to the gh_ interface
2016 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
2018 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
2020 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2022 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
2024 Thanks to Greg Badros!
2026 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2028 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2029 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
2030 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
2032 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
2035 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
2037 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
2038 the readability of argument checking.
2040 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
2042 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
2044 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
2046 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
2047 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
2048 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
2049 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
2050 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
2051 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
2052 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
2054 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
2056 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
2058 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
2059 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
2061 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
2063 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
2064 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
2067 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
2069 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
2070 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
2071 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
2073 Further, it is recommended not to rely on implementation details for guile's
2074 current implementation of bignums. It is planned to replace this
2075 implementation with gmp in the future.
2077 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
2078 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
2079 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
2081 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
2082 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
2083 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
2084 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
2085 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
2086 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
2087 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
2089 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
2090 scm_end_input (object);
2091 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
2092 ptob->flush (object);
2094 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
2095 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
2098 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
2100 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
2102 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
2103 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
2104 removed in a future version.
2106 ** The format of error message strings has changed
2108 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
2109 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
2110 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
2111 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
2113 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
2114 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
2116 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
2119 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
2121 in your configure.in.
2123 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
2128 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
2134 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
2136 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
2140 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
2141 (define make-message string-append)
2143 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
2145 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
2149 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
2154 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
2158 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
2160 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
2161 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
2163 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
2165 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
2166 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
2167 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
2168 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
2169 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
2170 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
2172 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
2173 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
2174 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
2176 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
2177 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
2178 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
2181 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
2182 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
2183 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
2184 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
2185 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
2187 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
2188 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
2189 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
2190 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
2191 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
2192 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
2193 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
2195 Destructors are not yet implemented.
2197 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
2198 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
2199 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
2201 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
2202 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
2203 KEY in the calling thread.
2205 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
2206 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
2207 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
2208 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
2209 associated with the key.
2211 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
2213 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
2214 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
2216 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
2218 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
2219 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
2220 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
2222 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
2224 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
2225 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
2227 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
2229 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
2231 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
2232 returned is undefined.
2234 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
2235 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
2236 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
2238 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
2239 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
2240 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
2242 ** New C level GC hooks
2244 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
2246 scm_before_gc_c_hook
2249 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
2250 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
2251 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
2253 scm_before_mark_c_hook
2254 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
2255 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
2257 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
2258 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
2261 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
2263 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
2264 allocation parameters
2266 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
2267 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
2268 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
2272 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
2273 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
2274 scm_default_max_segment_size
2276 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
2278 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
2279 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
2281 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
2283 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
2284 object and count on the object being protected until
2285 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
2287 The functions also have better time complexity.
2289 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
2290 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
2291 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
2292 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
2293 are no longer needed.
2295 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
2297 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
2298 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
2299 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
2300 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
2302 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
2304 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
2306 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
2308 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
2309 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
2310 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
2311 until this issue has been settled.
2313 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
2315 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
2317 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
2320 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
2322 * Changes to system call interfaces:
2324 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
2325 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
2326 descriptors were checked.
2328 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
2329 atomically written to a pipe.
2331 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
2332 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
2333 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
2334 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
2335 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
2336 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
2337 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
2340 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
2341 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
2342 is changed without calling tzset.
2344 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
2346 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
2347 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
2348 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
2350 (define write-network-long
2351 (lambda (value port)
2352 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2353 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
2354 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
2356 (define read-network-long
2358 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2359 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
2360 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
2362 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
2363 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
2365 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
2366 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
2367 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
2368 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
2370 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
2371 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
2372 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
2373 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
2377 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
2379 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2383 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
2384 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
2385 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
2391 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
2392 for a description of available commands.
2394 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
2395 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
2396 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
2398 (debug-enable 'backwards)
2400 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
2401 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
2403 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
2405 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
2407 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
2408 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
2409 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
2410 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
2411 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
2412 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
2415 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
2417 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
2418 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
2419 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
2420 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
2422 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
2423 the file and should not be affected by this change.
2425 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
2427 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2429 ** Readline support has changed again.
2431 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
2432 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
2433 to activate readline is now
2435 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
2438 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
2440 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
2441 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
2442 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
2445 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
2446 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
2447 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
2450 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
2451 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
2452 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
2453 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
2454 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
2455 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
2457 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
2458 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
2460 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
2462 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
2463 object it receives is the same string passed to
2464 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
2465 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
2466 string, not the suffix.
2468 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
2469 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
2470 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
2472 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
2474 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
2475 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
2476 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
2477 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
2480 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2482 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
2484 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
2485 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
2486 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
2487 appear from left to right.
2489 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
2492 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
2494 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
2495 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
2497 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2501 *** New function: hook? OBJ
2503 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
2505 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
2507 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
2508 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
2509 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
2511 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
2513 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
2515 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
2517 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
2520 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
2522 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
2523 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
2524 mentioning it here anyway.
2526 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
2528 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
2529 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
2530 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
2531 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
2534 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
2536 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
2538 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
2540 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
2541 otherwise return #f.
2543 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
2545 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
2546 returned by `opendir'.
2548 ** New function: using-readline?
2550 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
2552 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
2554 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
2555 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
2557 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2559 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
2561 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
2562 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
2563 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
2565 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
2567 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
2568 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
2570 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
2572 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
2573 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
2574 documentation slots are not yet used.
2576 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
2578 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
2579 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
2580 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
2585 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
2586 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
2587 (string-append x y))
2589 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
2590 can also be used for concatenating strings.
2592 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
2593 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
2594 be made in a clean way.]
2596 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
2598 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
2600 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
2602 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
2603 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
2605 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2607 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
2609 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
2611 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
2613 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
2614 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
2615 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
2616 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
2619 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2621 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
2623 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
2625 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
2627 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
2628 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
2630 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2632 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
2634 Evaluates the body of a special form.
2636 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
2638 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
2639 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
2640 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
2641 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
2642 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
2643 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
2645 This should not make any difference for most users.
2647 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
2649 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
2650 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
2652 *** New functions for applying generic functions
2654 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
2655 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
2656 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
2657 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
2658 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
2660 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
2662 It is now replaced by:
2664 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
2666 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
2667 binds a variable named NAME to it.
2669 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
2671 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
2672 This might change when we get the new module system.
2674 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
2678 Changes since Guile 1.3:
2680 * Changes to mailing lists
2682 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
2684 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
2687 * Changes to the distribution
2689 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
2691 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
2692 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
2693 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
2694 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
2695 you explicitly specify it.
2697 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
2698 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
2699 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
2700 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
2701 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
2704 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
2705 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
2706 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
2707 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
2709 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
2710 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
2711 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
2714 You can activate the readline support by issuing
2716 (use-modules (readline-activator))
2719 from your ".guile" file, for example.
2721 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2723 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
2724 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
2725 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
2726 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
2728 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
2729 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
2732 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2734 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
2735 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
2736 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
2737 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
2738 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
2739 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
2740 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
2741 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
2753 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
2754 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
2755 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
2756 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
2757 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
2762 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
2763 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
2771 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
2776 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
2777 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
2780 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
2781 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
2782 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
2783 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
2785 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
2787 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
2789 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
2790 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
2792 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
2794 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
2796 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
2797 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
2799 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
2802 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
2804 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
2806 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
2808 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
2810 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
2812 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
2814 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
2815 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
2816 when the hook was created.
2818 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
2819 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
2820 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
2821 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
2822 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
2823 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
2824 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
2825 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
2826 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
2828 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
2829 the dlopen family of functions.
2831 ** New function `provided?'
2833 - Function: provided? FEATURE
2834 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
2835 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
2836 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
2838 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
2840 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
2841 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
2842 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
2843 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
2846 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
2847 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
2848 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
2849 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
2851 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
2852 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
2853 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
2856 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
2857 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
2858 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
2859 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
2860 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
2861 but with the flag set.
2863 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
2865 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
2866 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
2868 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
2869 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
2870 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
2871 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
2872 available Scheme format implementations.
2874 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
2875 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
2876 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
2877 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
2878 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
2879 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
2880 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
2881 output is to the current error port if available by the
2882 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
2885 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
2886 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
2887 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
2888 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
2889 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
2890 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
2891 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
2892 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
2894 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
2895 be executed at a time.
2898 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
2900 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
2901 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
2902 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
2904 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
2905 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
2906 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
2907 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
2908 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
2909 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
2910 general form of a directive is:
2912 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
2914 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
2916 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
2918 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
2919 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
2920 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
2923 Any (print as `display' does).
2927 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
2931 S-expression (print as `write' does).
2935 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
2941 print number sign always.
2944 print comma separated.
2946 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
2952 print number sign always.
2955 print comma separated.
2957 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
2963 print number sign always.
2966 print comma separated.
2968 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
2974 print number sign always.
2977 print comma separated.
2979 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
2984 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
2988 print a number as a Roman numeral.
2991 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
2994 print a number as an ordinal English number.
2997 print a number as a cardinal English number.
3002 prints `y' and `ies'.
3005 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3008 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3013 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
3017 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
3020 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
3021 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
3023 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3026 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
3027 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
3029 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3032 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
3034 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
3036 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3039 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
3041 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
3043 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3046 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
3049 The sign appears before the padding.
3057 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
3059 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
3064 print N page separators.
3074 newline is ignored, white space left.
3077 newline is left, white space ignored.
3082 relative tabulation.
3088 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
3090 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
3093 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
3095 converts by `string-capitalize'.
3098 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
3101 converts by `string-upcase'.
3104 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
3106 jumps N arguments forward.
3109 jumps 1 argument backward.
3112 jumps N arguments backward.
3115 jumps to the 0th argument.
3118 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
3120 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
3121 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
3123 take argument from N.
3126 true test conditional.
3129 if-else-then conditional.
3135 default clause follows.
3138 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
3140 at most N iterations.
3143 args from next arg (a list of lists).
3146 args from the rest of arguments.
3149 args from the rest args (lists).
3160 aborts if N <= M <= K
3162 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3165 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3168 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3174 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
3176 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
3178 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
3179 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
3180 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
3181 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
3182 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
3183 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
3187 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
3191 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
3197 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
3200 Print a `#\space' character
3202 print N `#\space' characters.
3205 Print a `#\tab' character
3207 print N `#\tab' characters.
3210 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
3211 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
3212 must be a positive decimal number.
3215 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3216 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3217 be processed by `read'.
3220 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3221 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3222 be processed by `read'.
3225 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
3228 prints format version.
3231 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
3232 and format it accordingly.
3234 *** Configuration Variables
3236 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
3237 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
3238 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
3239 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
3242 format:symbol-case-conv
3243 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
3244 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
3245 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
3246 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
3247 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
3249 format:iobj-case-conv
3250 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
3251 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
3254 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
3257 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
3263 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
3264 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
3265 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
3266 `format' padding style.
3269 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
3270 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
3271 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
3272 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
3276 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
3277 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
3278 directive parameters or modifiers)).
3281 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
3282 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
3283 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
3284 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
3285 parameters or modifiers)).
3288 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
3290 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
3292 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
3293 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
3295 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
3296 string-downcase! functions.
3298 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
3299 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
3301 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
3304 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
3307 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
3308 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
3310 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
3312 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
3313 the symbol had be read by `read'.
3315 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
3316 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
3317 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
3318 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
3319 would if STRING were input.
3321 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
3323 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
3324 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
3325 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
3326 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
3329 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
3331 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
3332 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
3335 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
3337 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
3338 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
3340 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
3341 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
3343 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
3344 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
3345 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
3346 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
3348 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
3349 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
3351 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
3352 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
3353 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
3355 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
3356 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
3358 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
3359 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
3360 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
3361 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
3362 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
3364 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
3365 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
3366 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
3367 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
3368 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
3369 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
3371 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
3372 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
3373 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
3376 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
3377 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
3378 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
3379 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
3380 the following grammar:
3381 ((apples (single-char #\a))
3382 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
3383 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
3384 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
3385 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
3386 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
3387 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
3388 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
3389 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
3390 last option in its combination)
3392 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
3393 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
3394 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
3395 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
3397 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
3398 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
3399 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
3401 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3402 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3403 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
3405 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
3406 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
3407 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
3408 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
3409 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
3410 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
3411 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
3412 ordinary argument strings.
3414 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
3415 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
3416 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
3417 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
3419 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
3420 as a list, associated with the empty list.
3422 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
3423 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
3424 - a required option is omitted
3425 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
3426 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
3427 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
3428 - an option predicate fails
3433 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
3436 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
3437 (verbose (required? #f)
3440 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
3441 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
3442 (predicate ,string?))))
3444 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
3445 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3447 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3448 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
3449 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
3450 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
3453 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
3455 It will be removed in a few releases.
3457 ** New syntax: lambda*
3458 ** New syntax: define*
3459 ** New syntax: define*-public
3460 ** New syntax: defmacro*
3461 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
3462 Guile now supports optional arguments.
3464 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
3465 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
3466 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
3467 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
3468 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
3470 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
3471 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
3472 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
3474 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
3476 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
3477 and examples for `lambda*':
3480 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
3482 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
3483 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
3484 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
3485 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
3486 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
3487 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
3488 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
3489 can be checked with the bound? macro.
3491 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
3493 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
3494 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
3495 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
3496 are given as keywords are bound to values.
3498 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
3499 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
3500 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
3501 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
3502 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
3503 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
3504 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
3505 and until the procedure is called.
3507 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
3509 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
3510 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
3511 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
3512 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
3513 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
3514 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
3515 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
3516 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
3517 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
3518 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
3520 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
3521 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
3522 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
3523 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
3526 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
3528 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
3529 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
3530 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
3531 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
3533 ** New syntax: and-let*
3534 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
3536 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
3537 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
3538 (<variable> <expression>)
3541 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
3542 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
3543 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
3546 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
3547 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
3548 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
3549 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
3550 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
3551 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
3552 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
3554 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
3555 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
3556 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
3557 shadow earlier bindings.
3559 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
3561 ** New sorting functions
3563 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
3564 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
3565 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
3566 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
3568 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
3569 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
3572 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
3573 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
3574 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
3576 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
3577 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
3578 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
3579 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
3581 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
3582 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
3583 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
3584 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
3585 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
3588 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
3589 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
3590 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
3591 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
3592 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
3593 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
3595 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
3596 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
3597 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
3599 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
3600 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
3601 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
3604 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
3605 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
3606 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
3608 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
3609 Added for compatibility with scsh.
3611 ** New built-in random number support
3613 *** New function: random N [STATE]
3614 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
3615 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
3616 returned have a uniform distribution.
3618 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
3619 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
3620 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
3621 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
3622 effect of the `random' operation.
3624 *** New variable: *random-state*
3625 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
3626 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
3627 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
3628 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
3629 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
3632 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
3633 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
3634 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
3635 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
3636 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
3638 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
3639 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
3640 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
3641 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
3642 initialized using SEED.
3644 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
3645 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
3646 range between 0 and 1.
3648 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
3649 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
3650 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
3651 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
3652 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
3653 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
3654 or a uniform vector of doubles.
3656 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
3657 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
3658 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
3659 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
3660 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
3661 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
3663 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
3664 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
3665 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
3666 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
3668 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
3669 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
3670 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
3671 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
3673 *** New function: random:exp STATE
3674 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
3675 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
3677 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
3679 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
3682 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
3683 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
3686 ** New function: make-guardian
3687 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
3688 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
3689 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
3690 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
3691 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
3693 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
3694 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
3695 one object if at all.
3697 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
3698 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
3699 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
3701 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
3702 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
3703 read again in last-in first-out order.
3705 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
3706 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
3708 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
3710 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
3711 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
3712 file position is used.
3714 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
3715 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
3716 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
3718 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
3719 redefined using seek.
3721 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
3722 size is not supplied.
3724 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
3725 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
3727 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
3728 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
3730 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
3732 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
3733 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
3734 and returns the contents as a single string.
3736 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
3737 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
3738 lists in serial order.
3740 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
3741 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
3742 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
3744 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
3745 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
3746 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
3747 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
3749 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
3750 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
3751 and #f if an error occured.
3753 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
3755 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
3756 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
3757 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
3758 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
3760 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
3762 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
3765 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
3767 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
3770 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3774 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
3775 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
3777 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
3778 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
3782 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3784 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
3786 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3787 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3789 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3791 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
3792 might change when we get the new module system.
3794 ** The smob interface
3796 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
3797 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
3799 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
3801 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
3805 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
3806 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
3807 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
3808 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
3809 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
3810 will be freed by the default free function.
3812 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
3813 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
3814 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3815 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3817 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
3818 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
3819 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3820 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3822 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
3824 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
3825 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
3829 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
3830 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3831 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3833 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
3834 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
3835 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3836 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3838 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
3839 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
3840 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
3842 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
3843 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
3844 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
3845 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
3847 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
3848 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
3849 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
3851 *** scm_newptob has been removed
3855 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
3857 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
3858 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
3859 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
3861 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
3862 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
3863 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
3865 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
3866 a string port's buffer.
3868 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
3869 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
3870 function pointers which together define the current random number
3871 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
3872 number library functions.
3874 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
3877 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
3878 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
3881 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
3882 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
3884 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
3885 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
3887 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
3888 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
3891 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
3892 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
3893 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
3894 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
3896 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
3897 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
3898 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
3899 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
3900 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
3901 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
3902 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
3904 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
3905 by libguile and the application.
3907 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
3908 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
3909 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
3910 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
3912 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
3913 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
3915 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
3916 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
3917 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
3919 ** Random number library functions
3920 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
3921 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
3922 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
3924 The default random state is stored in:
3926 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
3927 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
3928 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
3933 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
3935 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
3936 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
3937 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
3938 isn't a random state.
3940 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
3941 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
3943 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
3944 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
3945 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
3946 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
3948 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3949 Return 32 random bits.
3951 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3952 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
3954 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3955 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
3957 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3958 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
3960 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
3961 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
3963 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
3964 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
3965 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
3969 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
3971 * Changes to the distribution
3973 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
3974 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
3975 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
3978 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
3979 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
3980 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
3982 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
3983 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
3984 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
3985 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
3988 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
3989 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
3990 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
3992 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3994 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
3996 *** Function: batch-mode?
3998 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
4001 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
4003 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
4004 case has not been implemented.
4006 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
4007 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
4008 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
4011 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
4012 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
4014 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
4016 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4018 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
4020 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
4021 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
4024 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
4025 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
4026 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
4027 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
4030 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
4032 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
4033 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
4034 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
4035 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
4036 find those libraries.
4038 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
4039 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
4042 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
4044 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
4045 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
4046 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
4047 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
4049 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
4050 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
4051 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
4055 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
4057 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
4058 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
4059 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
4062 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
4063 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
4064 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
4065 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
4067 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
4068 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
4071 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
4072 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
4073 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
4074 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
4075 compiler where to find the libraries.
4077 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
4078 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
4079 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
4081 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
4082 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
4083 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
4084 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
4085 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
4089 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4091 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
4092 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
4093 internationalization support.
4095 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
4096 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
4097 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
4098 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
4099 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
4101 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
4102 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
4103 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
4104 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
4105 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
4107 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
4108 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
4109 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
4110 any GNU mirror site.
4112 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
4114 ** New function: add-history STRING
4115 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
4116 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
4117 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
4119 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
4121 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
4122 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
4123 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
4126 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
4127 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
4128 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
4130 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
4132 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
4135 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
4136 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
4139 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
4140 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
4141 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
4142 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
4143 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
4144 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
4146 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
4147 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
4148 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
4149 of the form mentioned above.
4151 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
4152 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
4153 returned in the special `rest' list.
4155 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
4156 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
4158 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
4160 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
4162 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
4164 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
4165 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
4166 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
4167 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
4168 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
4169 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
4170 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
4171 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
4174 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
4176 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
4178 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
4179 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
4182 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
4183 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
4184 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
4188 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
4189 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
4190 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
4191 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
4192 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
4193 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
4194 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
4195 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
4198 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
4200 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
4201 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
4202 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
4204 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
4206 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
4207 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
4209 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
4210 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
4211 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
4213 Why do we have this function?
4214 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
4215 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
4216 primitive, and display it differently, and
4217 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
4218 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
4221 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
4222 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
4225 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
4226 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
4227 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
4228 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
4230 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
4231 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
4234 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
4235 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
4237 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
4239 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
4240 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
4241 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
4242 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
4243 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
4244 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
4245 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
4248 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
4250 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
4251 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
4253 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
4254 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
4255 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
4256 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
4257 properly continue the print chain.
4259 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
4260 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
4261 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
4262 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
4263 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
4264 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
4265 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
4266 print-state, it is simply ignored.
4268 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
4269 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
4270 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
4271 safest to not check for these pairs.
4273 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
4274 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
4275 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
4276 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
4278 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
4280 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
4281 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
4283 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
4285 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
4287 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
4288 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
4289 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
4291 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
4292 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
4293 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
4295 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
4296 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
4297 the following functions and macros:
4299 Function: make-fluid
4301 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
4302 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
4303 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
4304 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
4305 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
4307 Function: fluid? OBJ
4309 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
4311 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
4312 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
4314 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
4315 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
4317 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
4319 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
4320 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
4321 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
4322 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
4323 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
4324 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
4325 modified by `with-fluids*'.
4327 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
4329 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
4330 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
4331 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
4332 should evaluate to a fluid.
4334 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
4336 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
4337 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
4338 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
4339 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
4340 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
4342 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
4345 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
4347 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
4349 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
4351 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
4354 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
4355 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
4356 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
4357 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
4358 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
4361 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
4362 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
4363 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
4365 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
4366 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
4367 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
4369 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
4370 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
4371 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4372 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
4374 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
4375 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
4376 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4377 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
4379 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
4380 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
4381 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
4382 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
4384 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
4385 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
4386 their revealed counts set to zero.
4388 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4389 Returns an integer file descriptor.
4391 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4392 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
4394 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4395 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
4397 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4398 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
4399 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
4401 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
4402 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
4403 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
4405 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
4406 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
4407 default environment inherited by child processes.
4409 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
4410 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
4411 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
4413 The return value is unspecified.
4415 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
4416 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
4417 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
4418 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
4419 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
4421 The return value is unspecified.
4423 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
4424 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
4432 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
4433 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
4436 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
4439 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
4440 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
4441 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
4443 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
4444 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
4445 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
4446 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
4449 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
4450 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
4452 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
4453 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
4454 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
4455 the `environ' procedure.
4457 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
4458 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
4461 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
4462 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
4464 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
4465 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
4466 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
4467 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
4469 *** procedure: times
4470 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
4471 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
4472 return a selected component:
4475 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
4479 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
4482 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
4486 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
4487 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
4491 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
4492 terminated child processes.
4494 ** Removed: list-length
4495 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
4496 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
4498 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
4500 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
4502 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
4504 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
4505 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
4506 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
4507 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
4509 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
4510 extra complexity it introduces.
4512 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
4513 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
4515 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
4516 variable to any non-empty value.
4518 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
4519 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
4521 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4523 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
4524 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
4526 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
4528 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
4529 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
4531 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
4533 ** vector handling routines
4535 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
4536 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
4537 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
4538 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
4539 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
4541 ** pair and list routines
4543 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
4546 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
4548 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
4551 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4553 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
4555 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
4556 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
4557 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
4558 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
4559 site-specific initialization code.
4561 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
4562 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
4563 initialization processes.
4565 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
4566 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
4567 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
4568 initialized properly.
4570 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
4571 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
4572 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
4574 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
4575 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
4576 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
4577 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
4578 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
4580 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
4582 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
4583 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
4584 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
4585 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
4586 objects the smob refers to get marked.
4588 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
4589 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
4590 which look like this:
4593 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
4595 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
4596 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
4599 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
4600 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
4603 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
4605 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
4606 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
4607 you will need to change your functions slightly.
4609 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
4610 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
4611 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
4612 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
4613 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
4615 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
4616 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
4618 int (*free) (SCM port);
4619 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
4620 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
4621 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
4625 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
4626 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
4627 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
4629 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
4632 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
4633 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
4634 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
4636 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
4637 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
4638 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
4641 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
4645 struct timeval *timeout);
4647 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
4648 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
4649 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
4650 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
4651 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
4652 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
4654 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
4655 scm_catch_body_t body,
4657 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
4660 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
4661 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
4662 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
4663 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
4664 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
4665 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
4667 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
4669 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
4672 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
4673 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
4674 spawning threads from application C code.
4676 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
4677 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
4678 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
4679 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
4680 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
4681 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
4683 ** Removed functions:
4685 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
4686 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
4688 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
4690 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
4691 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
4693 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
4695 ** mbstrings are now removed
4697 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
4698 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
4700 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
4702 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
4703 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
4704 their new names and arguments:
4706 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
4707 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
4708 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
4709 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
4712 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
4714 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
4716 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
4719 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
4721 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
4722 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
4723 pass a #f arg to catch.
4725 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
4727 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
4728 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
4731 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
4732 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
4733 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
4734 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
4735 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
4736 reclaim its storage.
4738 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
4739 worrying that some other function you call will call
4740 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
4741 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
4742 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
4743 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
4746 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
4748 * Changes to the distribution
4750 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
4751 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
4754 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
4755 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
4757 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4758 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4760 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
4762 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
4763 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
4764 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
4766 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4768 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
4769 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
4770 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
4771 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
4772 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
4773 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
4775 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
4776 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
4777 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
4780 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
4781 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
4782 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
4783 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
4785 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
4786 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
4787 libraries to your link command:
4789 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
4790 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
4791 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
4792 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
4794 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
4795 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
4796 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
4798 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4800 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
4801 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
4804 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
4806 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
4807 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
4808 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
4809 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
4810 searched is system dependent.
4812 (dynamic-object? VAL)
4814 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
4816 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
4818 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
4819 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
4821 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
4823 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
4824 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
4825 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
4826 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
4827 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
4830 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
4832 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
4833 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
4834 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
4835 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
4836 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
4838 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
4840 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
4841 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
4843 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
4845 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
4846 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
4847 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
4850 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
4852 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
4853 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
4854 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
4855 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
4857 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
4858 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
4860 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
4862 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
4863 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
4865 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
4867 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
4868 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
4876 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
4878 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
4879 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
4880 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
4881 a more informative way.
4883 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
4884 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
4885 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
4886 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
4887 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
4888 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
4890 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
4891 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
4894 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
4895 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
4896 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
4899 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
4900 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
4901 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
4902 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
4903 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
4904 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
4906 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
4907 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
4908 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
4909 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
4912 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
4913 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
4914 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
4915 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
4916 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
4917 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
4919 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
4920 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
4921 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
4922 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
4923 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
4925 *** regexp functions
4927 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
4928 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
4929 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
4931 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
4932 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
4933 with SCSH regular expressions.
4935 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
4936 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
4937 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
4938 position of STR at which to begin matching.
4940 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
4941 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
4942 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
4943 `string-match' returns `#f'.
4945 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
4946 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
4947 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
4948 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
4949 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
4950 match strings against the compiled regexp.
4952 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
4953 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
4954 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
4955 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
4956 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
4958 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
4960 **** Constant: regexp/extended
4961 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
4962 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
4963 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
4965 **** Constant: regexp/icase
4966 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
4967 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
4969 **** Constant: regexp/newline
4970 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
4972 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
4975 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
4976 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
4977 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
4979 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
4980 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
4981 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
4983 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
4984 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
4985 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
4986 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
4987 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
4990 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
4992 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
4993 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
4994 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
4995 used when different portions of a string are passed to
4996 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
4997 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
4999 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
5000 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
5001 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
5003 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
5004 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
5007 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
5008 and replace them with the contents of another string.
5010 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
5011 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
5012 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
5013 may be one of the following arguments:
5015 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
5017 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
5019 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
5020 the regexp match is written.
5022 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
5023 following the regexp match is written.
5025 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
5026 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
5029 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
5030 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
5031 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
5032 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
5033 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
5034 which should be matched against this regular expression.
5036 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
5039 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
5040 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
5041 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
5042 written out to PORT.
5044 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
5045 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
5046 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
5047 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
5048 will return after processing a single match.
5050 *** Match Structures
5052 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
5053 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
5054 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
5055 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
5056 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
5057 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
5060 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
5061 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
5062 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
5063 information about the original target string that was matched against a
5064 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
5066 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
5067 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
5068 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
5070 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
5071 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
5072 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
5073 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
5074 number N did not match, return `#f'.
5076 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
5077 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
5079 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
5080 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
5082 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
5083 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
5085 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
5086 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
5088 **** Function: match:count MATCH
5089 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
5090 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
5091 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
5093 **** Function: match:string MATCH
5094 Return the original TARGET string.
5096 *** Backslash Escapes
5098 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
5099 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
5100 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
5101 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
5102 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
5103 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
5105 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
5106 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
5107 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
5108 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
5109 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
5110 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
5111 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
5112 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
5114 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
5115 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
5116 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
5117 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
5118 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
5119 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
5120 each match a single backslash in the target string.
5122 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
5123 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
5124 return the resulting string.
5126 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
5127 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
5128 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
5129 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
5130 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
5131 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
5132 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
5133 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
5134 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
5135 translated to the single character `*'.
5137 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
5138 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
5139 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
5140 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
5141 consecutive backslashes:
5143 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
5145 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
5146 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
5147 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
5149 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
5150 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
5151 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
5152 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
5153 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
5154 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
5156 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
5158 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
5159 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
5160 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
5161 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
5162 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
5163 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
5164 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
5165 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
5166 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
5167 cumbersome escape syntax.
5169 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5171 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5173 * Changes to system call interfaces:
5175 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
5178 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
5180 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
5182 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
5185 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
5186 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
5187 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
5188 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
5189 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
5191 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
5192 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
5193 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
5194 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
5195 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
5196 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
5197 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
5200 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
5201 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
5202 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
5205 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
5206 `force-output' on every port open for output.
5208 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
5209 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
5210 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
5211 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
5212 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
5213 installed, you can say:
5215 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
5218 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5220 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
5221 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
5222 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
5223 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
5224 new dynamic roots and threads.
5227 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
5229 * Changes to the distribution.
5231 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
5233 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
5234 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
5235 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
5236 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
5237 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
5238 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
5239 programming language. These are packaged together because the
5240 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
5242 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
5245 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
5246 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
5251 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5253 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
5254 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
5256 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
5257 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
5258 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
5259 the (command-line) function.
5260 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
5261 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
5262 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
5264 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
5265 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
5266 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
5267 command line arguments
5268 -ds do -s script at this point
5269 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
5270 -h, --help display this help and exit
5271 -v, --version display version information and exit
5272 \ read arguments from following script lines
5274 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
5275 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
5277 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5280 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5284 (main (command-line))
5286 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
5288 ekko a speckled gecko
5290 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
5291 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
5292 following list of command-line arguments:
5294 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
5296 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
5297 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
5298 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
5299 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
5300 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5302 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
5304 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
5306 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
5307 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
5310 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
5311 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
5312 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
5313 SCSH) for circumventing them.
5315 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
5316 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
5317 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
5318 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
5320 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
5324 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5328 If the user invokes this script as follows:
5330 ekko a speckled gecko
5332 Unix expands this into
5334 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
5336 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
5337 read from the second line of the script, producing:
5339 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
5341 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
5342 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5344 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
5345 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
5346 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
5347 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
5348 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
5349 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
5350 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
5351 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
5352 it only terminates the argument list.)
5353 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
5354 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
5355 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
5356 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
5357 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
5358 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
5359 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
5360 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
5362 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5364 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
5365 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
5366 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
5367 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
5368 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
5370 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
5371 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
5372 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
5374 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
5376 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
5377 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
5378 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
5379 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
5382 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
5383 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5384 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5386 * Changes to Scheme functions
5388 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
5389 and disabled by default.
5391 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
5392 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
5393 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
5394 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
5396 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
5398 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
5400 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
5401 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
5403 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
5404 (read-set! keywords #f)
5406 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
5407 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
5408 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
5411 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
5412 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
5413 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
5416 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
5417 support for Scheme functions.
5419 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5420 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
5421 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
5422 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
5425 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5426 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
5427 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
5430 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
5431 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
5432 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
5435 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
5436 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
5437 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
5438 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
5439 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
5440 display the result as a prompt.
5441 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
5443 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
5444 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
5445 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
5448 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
5449 procedure of zero arguments.
5451 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
5452 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
5453 argument is bound in the current module.
5455 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
5456 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
5457 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
5458 public bindings into the current module.
5460 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
5461 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
5463 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
5464 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
5466 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
5467 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
5469 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
5470 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
5472 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
5473 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
5475 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
5476 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
5477 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
5478 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
5479 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
5481 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
5482 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
5483 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
5484 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
5486 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
5489 ** Changes to I/O functions
5491 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
5492 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
5493 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
5495 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
5496 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
5497 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
5499 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
5500 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
5502 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
5503 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
5504 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
5505 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
5507 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
5509 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
5510 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
5512 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
5513 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
5514 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
5515 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
5516 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
5519 'trim omit delimiter from result
5520 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
5521 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
5522 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
5524 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
5526 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
5527 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
5529 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
5530 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
5531 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
5532 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
5533 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
5535 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
5536 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
5537 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
5539 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
5540 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
5541 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
5542 above, and defaults to 'peek.
5544 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
5545 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
5547 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
5548 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
5550 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
5552 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
5553 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
5554 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
5555 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
5556 a delimiting character.
5557 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
5559 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
5560 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
5561 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
5562 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
5563 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
5564 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
5566 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
5567 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
5569 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
5570 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
5571 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
5573 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
5574 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
5575 the array to read and write.
5577 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
5578 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
5581 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
5583 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
5586 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
5587 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
5588 Values for COMMAND are:
5590 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
5591 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
5592 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
5593 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
5594 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
5595 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
5596 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
5597 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
5599 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
5601 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
5602 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
5603 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
5604 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
5605 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
5606 corresponding return set will be the same.
5608 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
5611 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
5612 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
5613 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
5614 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
5615 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
5616 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
5617 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
5618 special file being created.
5620 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
5621 clashing with various SCSH forks.
5623 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
5624 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
5625 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
5626 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
5627 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
5628 and originating address.
5630 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
5631 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
5632 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
5634 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
5637 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
5638 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
5641 (status:exit-val STATUS)
5642 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
5643 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
5644 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
5645 this function returns #f.
5647 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
5648 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
5649 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
5652 (status:term-sig STATUS)
5653 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
5654 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
5657 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
5658 a valid STATUS value.
5660 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
5662 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
5663 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
5665 Component Accessor Setter
5666 ========================= ============ ============
5667 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
5668 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
5669 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
5670 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
5671 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
5672 year tm:year set-tm:year
5673 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
5674 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
5675 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
5676 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
5677 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
5679 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
5680 describing the host system:
5683 ============================================== ================
5684 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
5685 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
5686 release level of the operating system utsname:release
5687 version level of the operating system utsname:version
5688 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
5690 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
5691 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
5692 system's user database:
5695 ====================== =================
5696 user name passwd:name
5697 user password passwd:passwd
5700 real name passwd:gecos
5701 home directory passwd:dir
5702 shell program passwd:shell
5704 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
5705 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
5706 system's group database:
5709 ======================= ============
5710 group name group:name
5711 group password group:passwd
5713 group members group:mem
5715 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
5716 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
5720 ========================= ===============
5721 official name of host hostent:name
5722 alias list hostent:aliases
5723 host address type hostent:addrtype
5724 length of address hostent:length
5725 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
5727 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
5728 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
5732 ========================= ===============
5733 official name of net netent:name
5734 alias list netent:aliases
5735 net number type netent:addrtype
5736 net number netent:net
5738 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
5739 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
5743 ========================= ===============
5744 official protocol name protoent:name
5745 alias list protoent:aliases
5746 protocol number protoent:proto
5748 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
5749 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
5753 ========================= ===============
5754 official service name servent:name
5755 alias list servent:aliases
5756 port number servent:port
5757 protocol to use servent:proto
5759 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
5760 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
5763 ======================================== ===============
5764 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
5765 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
5766 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
5767 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
5769 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
5770 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
5771 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
5773 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
5774 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
5776 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
5777 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
5779 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
5780 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
5782 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
5784 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
5786 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
5787 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
5788 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
5790 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
5791 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
5792 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
5793 return the remaining characters as a string.
5795 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
5796 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
5797 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
5799 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
5801 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5803 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
5806 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
5809 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
5810 and returns the array
5812 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
5813 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
5814 the user to interpret the data both ways.
5816 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5818 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
5819 symbol's value from C code:
5821 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
5822 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
5823 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
5824 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
5826 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
5827 without assigning them a value.
5829 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
5830 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
5831 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
5833 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
5834 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
5835 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
5837 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
5838 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
5840 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
5841 doesn't actually care about that.
5843 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
5844 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
5845 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
5847 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
5848 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
5849 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
5850 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
5851 which we have just created and initialized.
5853 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
5854 should one occur. We call it like this:
5855 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
5857 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
5858 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
5859 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
5860 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
5861 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
5862 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
5865 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
5866 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
5867 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
5868 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
5869 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
5870 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
5871 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
5874 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
5875 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
5876 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
5877 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
5878 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
5881 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
5882 scm_internal_catch, except:
5884 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
5885 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
5886 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
5887 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
5890 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
5891 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
5892 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
5894 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
5895 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
5896 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
5897 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
5900 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
5901 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
5902 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
5904 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
5905 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
5906 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
5907 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
5908 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
5910 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
5911 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
5912 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
5914 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
5915 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
5916 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
5918 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
5919 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
5921 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
5922 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
5923 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
5926 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
5927 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
5928 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
5929 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
5930 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
5931 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
5932 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
5935 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
5936 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
5938 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
5939 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
5940 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
5941 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
5942 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
5945 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
5946 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
5948 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
5949 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
5952 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
5953 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
5955 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5958 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
5959 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
5960 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
5961 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
5962 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
5963 given the following arguments:
5965 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
5967 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
5969 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
5971 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5974 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
5975 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
5976 command-line arguments.
5978 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
5979 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
5980 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
5981 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
5982 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
5983 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
5986 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5989 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
5990 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
5992 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
5993 rearranged slightly. They are now:
5995 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5996 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
5997 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
5998 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
6000 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6001 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6003 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6004 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
6005 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6006 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
6008 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6009 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6011 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
6012 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
6014 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
6016 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
6017 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
6018 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
6021 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
6022 returns a port instead of an FD object.
6024 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
6025 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
6030 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
6033 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
6035 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
6036 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
6037 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
6038 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
6040 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
6042 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
6044 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
6045 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
6046 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
6047 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
6048 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
6049 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
6050 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
6051 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
6052 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
6053 for more information.
6055 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
6056 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
6058 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
6059 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
6060 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
6061 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
6062 following two lines at the top of the file:
6064 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6067 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
6068 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
6069 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
6071 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
6073 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6075 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
6078 (display (car args))
6079 (if (pair? (cdr args))
6081 (loop (cdr args)))))
6084 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
6085 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
6086 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
6087 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
6088 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
6089 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
6093 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
6096 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
6099 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
6101 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
6102 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
6103 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
6104 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
6105 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
6108 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
6109 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
6110 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
6111 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
6112 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
6115 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
6118 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
6119 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
6120 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
6123 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
6124 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
6125 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
6127 to see a backtrace, and
6128 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
6129 to see them by default.
6133 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
6135 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
6137 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
6138 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
6141 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
6142 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
6143 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
6144 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
6147 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
6148 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
6149 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
6150 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
6151 functions which inspired them.
6153 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
6154 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
6158 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
6160 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
6162 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
6163 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
6166 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
6167 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
6168 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
6170 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
6171 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
6172 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
6173 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
6174 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
6176 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
6178 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
6179 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
6180 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
6183 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
6186 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
6188 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
6189 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
6190 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
6191 above should serve their purposes.
6193 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
6194 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
6195 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
6196 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
6198 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
6201 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
6202 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
6203 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
6204 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
6206 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
6207 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
6208 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
6209 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
6211 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
6212 for the `read' function.
6215 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
6216 to that of `integer?'.
6218 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
6219 use the R4RS names for these functions.
6221 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
6222 it simply returns the object's property list.
6224 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
6225 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
6226 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
6227 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
6229 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
6231 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
6234 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
6236 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
6237 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
6239 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
6241 void (*main_func) (),
6244 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
6245 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
6246 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
6247 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
6248 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
6250 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
6251 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
6252 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
6253 know which arguments have been processed.
6255 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
6256 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
6257 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
6258 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
6259 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
6261 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
6262 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
6263 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
6264 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
6265 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
6266 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
6267 people from making that mistake.
6269 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
6270 convenient ways to override these when desired.
6272 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
6274 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
6278 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
6281 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
6282 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
6283 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
6284 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
6287 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
6288 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
6289 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
6290 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
6293 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
6294 have been added to the Guile library.
6296 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
6297 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
6298 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
6301 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
6302 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
6303 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
6305 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
6306 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
6307 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
6308 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
6309 argument from the list.
6312 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
6315 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
6316 null-terminated string, and returns it.
6318 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
6319 to a Scheme port object.
6321 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
6322 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
6327 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
6329 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
6330 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
6331 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
6332 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
6333 code as a special datatype.
6335 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
6336 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
6337 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
6338 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
6339 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
6342 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
6343 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
6344 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
6345 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
6346 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
6348 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
6351 Copyright information:
6353 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6355 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
6356 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
6357 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
6358 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
6360 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
6361 of this document, or of portions of it,
6362 under the above conditions, provided also that they
6363 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
6368 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"