1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes. -*- text -*-
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
7 Changes since the stable branch:
9 * Changes to the standalone interpreter
11 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
13 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
14 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
16 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
18 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
19 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
21 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
23 ** We now have uninterned symbols.
25 The new function 'make-symbol' will return a uninterned symbol. This
26 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
27 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
29 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
32 ** pretty-print has more options.
34 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
35 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
36 maximum output width. See its online documentation.
38 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
40 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
41 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
42 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
44 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
46 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
47 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
49 ** Removed: substring-move-left!, substring-move-right!
51 Use `substring-move!' instead.
53 * Changes to the C interface
55 ** The struct scm_cell has been renamed to scm_t_cell
57 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
58 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
59 initializes a new cell (see below).
61 ** New functions for memory management
63 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
64 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
65 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
66 cause aborts in long running programs.
68 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
69 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
71 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_strdup,
72 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_realloc, scm_gc_free,
73 scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
74 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
75 details and for upgrading instructions.
77 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
78 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
79 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
81 ** New function: scm_str2string
83 This function creates a scheme string from a 0-terminated C string. The input
86 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
88 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
89 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
90 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
91 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
92 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
94 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
95 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
96 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
98 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, QT_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
99 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
101 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
103 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old macros
104 had problems because with them allocation and initialization was separated and
105 the GC could sometimes observe half initialized cells. Only careful coding by
106 the user of SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
108 ** Removed definitions: scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify,
109 s_t_ify, scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
110 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, scm_tc16_allocated,
111 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY, SCM_IM_0_COND,
112 SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED, scm_debug_newcell,
113 scm_debug_newcell2, scm_substring_move_left_x, scm_substring_move_right_x,
114 long_long, ulong_long, scm_sizet, SCM_WNA, SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC,
115 SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL,
116 SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL,
117 SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, moddata, registered_mods,
118 scm_register_module_xxx, scm_registered_modules,
119 scm_clear_registered_modules, scm_wta, *top-level-lookup-closure*,
120 scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
121 scm_eval2, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR, SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR,
122 SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_GC8MARKP, SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK,
123 SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, scm_remember, scm_protect_object,
124 scm_unprotect_object, root_module_lookup_closure, scm_sym_app,
125 scm_sym_modules, module_prefix, make_modules_in_var,
126 beautify_user_module_x_var, try_module_autoload_var, scm_module_full_name,
127 scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module, scm_ensure_user_module,
128 scm_load_scheme_module, scm_port, scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_port_rw_active,
129 scm_close_all_ports_except, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_i_rstate,
130 SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_STRING_UCHARS, SCM_STRING_CHARS,
131 scm_read_only_string_p, scm_makstr, scm_makfromstr,
132 scm_make_shared_substring, scm_tc7_substring, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP,
133 SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP, scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
134 sym_huh, scm_variable_set_name_hint, scm_builtin_variable, SCM_VARVCELL,
135 SCM_UDVARIABLEP, SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_internal_with_fluids,
136 scm_make_gsubr, scm_make_gsubr_with_generic, scm_create_hook, list*,
137 SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4, SCM_LIST5,
138 SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9, scm_listify, scm_sloppy_memq,
139 scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member, scm_end_of_file_key,
140 scm_read_and_eval_x, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
141 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
142 scm_subr_entry, SCM_SUBR_DOC, scm_make_subr_opt, scm_make_subr,
143 scm_make_subr_with_generic, setjmp_type, setjmp_type,
144 scm_call_catching_errors, scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe,
145 scm_strprint_obj, scm_read_0str, scm_eval_0str, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
146 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
147 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
148 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR, scm_strhash,
149 scm_sym2vcell, scm_sym2ovcell_soft, scm_sym2ovcell,
150 scm_intern_obarray_soft, scm_intern_obarray, scm_intern, scm_intern0,
151 scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0, scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup,
152 scm_symbol_value0, scm_string_to_obarray_symbol, scm_intern_symbol,
153 scm_unintern_symbol, scm_symbol_binding, scm_symbol_interned_p,
154 scm_symbol_bound_p, scm_symbol_set_x, scm_gentemp,
155 scm_init_symbols_deprecated, s_vector_set_length_x, scm_vector_set_length_x,
156 scm_contregs, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_OPDIRP,
157 scm_fport, scm_option, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL,
158 SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT, scm_srcprops, scm_srcprops_chunk,
159 scm_info_frame, scm_stack, scm_array, scm_array_dim, SCM_ARRAY_CONTIGUOUS,
160 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA,
161 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY,
162 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
163 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
164 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int,
165 scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int,
166 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell,
167 SCM_ECONSP, SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
168 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable
170 Changes since Guile 1.4:
172 * Changes to the distribution
174 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
176 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
178 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
179 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
180 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
181 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
182 indicate major changes in Guile.
184 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
185 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
186 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
187 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
189 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
190 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
191 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
192 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
193 micro version number.
195 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
197 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
199 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
200 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
202 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
204 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
205 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
206 See INSTALL and README for more information.
208 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
210 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
211 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
212 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
215 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
217 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
220 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
222 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
223 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
225 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
227 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
228 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
231 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
233 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
236 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
239 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
241 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
243 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
244 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
245 open-output-string, get-output-string.
247 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
249 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
251 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
254 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
256 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
258 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
260 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
261 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
262 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
264 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
266 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
268 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
269 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
278 See README there for more info.
280 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
281 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
284 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
286 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
288 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
290 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
291 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
292 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
294 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
296 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
297 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
298 to be named `and-let*', of course.
300 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
301 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
303 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
308 (oop goops active-slot)
309 (oop goops composite-slot)
311 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
312 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
313 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
315 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
317 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
318 in the default environment:
320 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
321 %read-line write-line
323 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
324 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
326 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
328 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
331 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
332 can be used for similar functionality.
334 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
336 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
337 it defines two procedures:
339 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
341 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
342 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
343 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
346 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
348 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
349 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
350 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
353 ** New module (ice-9 match)
355 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
356 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
358 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
360 for complete documentation.
362 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
364 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
365 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
366 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
367 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
369 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
370 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
374 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
375 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
376 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
379 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
382 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
383 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
385 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
386 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
389 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
392 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
394 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
396 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
398 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
400 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
401 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
402 Scheme programs easier.
404 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
405 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
406 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
407 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
408 `cond-expand' when using this option.
411 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
412 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
414 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
417 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
419 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
420 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
421 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
424 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
426 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
428 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
429 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
430 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
431 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
432 was also ASCII, for example.
434 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
436 tag - no replacement.
437 fseek - replaced by seek.
438 list* - replaced by cons*.
440 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
444 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
445 (define m (make-safe-module))
446 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
447 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
448 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
450 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
452 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
453 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
454 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
456 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
458 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
459 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
460 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
461 from the issues related to the module system.
463 *** New function: load-extension
465 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
467 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
469 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
470 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
471 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
473 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
475 This function registers a initialization function for use by
476 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
477 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
478 support dynamic linking).
480 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
482 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
483 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
484 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
485 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
488 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
489 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
490 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
491 library and initialize it explicitely.
493 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
494 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
496 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
498 (define-module (foo bar))
500 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
502 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
504 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
505 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
507 (scheme-report-environment 5)
509 (interaction-environment)
515 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
517 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
518 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
519 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
520 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
522 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
523 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
524 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
525 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
526 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
527 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
528 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
529 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
530 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
531 one eval to the next.
533 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
534 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
535 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
536 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
537 subforms are at the top-level as well.
539 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
540 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
541 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
542 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
543 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
544 used in a lexical environment.
546 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
547 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
548 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
549 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
550 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
551 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
553 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
555 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
556 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
557 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
558 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
559 new facilities: selection and renaming.
561 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
562 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
563 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
565 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
566 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
568 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
569 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
570 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
573 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
575 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
576 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
577 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
578 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
581 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
582 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
583 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
584 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
587 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
588 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
590 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
591 ;; and all four by upcasing.
592 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
593 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
594 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
596 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
599 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
600 :renamer upcase-symbol))
602 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
603 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
604 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
606 See manual for more info.
608 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
610 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
611 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
612 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
614 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
616 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
617 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
618 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
620 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
621 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
622 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
623 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
625 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
627 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
628 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
630 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
631 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
632 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
633 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
634 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
637 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
638 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
639 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
640 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
641 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
642 successful and #f if it wasn't.
644 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
645 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
646 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
647 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
648 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
650 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
651 objects are usually permanent.
653 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
654 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
656 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
658 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
659 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
662 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
666 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
671 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
673 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
674 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
675 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
676 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
678 ** New function `make-object-property'
680 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
681 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
685 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
686 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
690 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
691 source properties eventually.
693 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
695 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
696 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
697 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
699 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
700 will be removed in the next release.
702 ** New define-module option: pure
704 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
709 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
712 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
714 Export names NAME1 ...
716 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
717 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
723 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
726 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
731 ** New function: object->string OBJ
733 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
735 ** New function: port? X
737 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
738 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
740 ** New function: file-port?
742 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
744 ** New function: port-for-each proc
746 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
747 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
748 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
749 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
750 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
752 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
754 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
755 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
756 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
757 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
758 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
761 ** New function: close-fdes fd
763 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
764 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
765 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
766 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
769 ** New function: crypt password salt
771 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
774 ** New function: chroot path
776 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
778 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
780 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
783 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
785 Get or set the priority of the running process.
787 ** New function: getpass prompt
789 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
792 ** New function: flock file operation
794 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
796 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
798 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
801 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
803 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
804 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
805 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
806 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
807 of the temporary file.
809 ** New function: open-input-string string
811 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
812 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
813 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
815 ** New function: open-output-string
817 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
818 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
820 ** New function: get-output-string
822 Return the contents of an output string port.
824 ** New function: identity
828 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
829 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
831 ** New function: inet-pton family address
833 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
834 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
835 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
838 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
839 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
841 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
843 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
844 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
845 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
848 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
849 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
850 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
854 Use `identity' instead.
860 ** Deprecated: return-it
864 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
866 Use `string-length' instead.
870 Use `logior' instead.
872 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
874 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
875 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
876 port-for-each is more flexible.
878 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
879 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
880 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
882 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
884 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
886 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
888 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
890 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
892 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
893 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
895 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
896 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
898 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
899 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
901 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
903 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
904 Removed function: builtin-bindings
906 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
907 Use module system operations for all variables.
909 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
911 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
914 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
916 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
917 The following bugs have been fixed:
919 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
920 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
923 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
924 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
925 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
927 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
928 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
930 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
931 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
934 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
935 The expansion used to be like so:
937 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
939 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
941 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
943 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
944 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
946 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
948 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
949 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
950 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
954 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
955 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
957 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
962 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
963 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
965 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
966 and `d', other keywords allowed.
967 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
969 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
972 * Changes to the C interface
974 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
976 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
977 with "_t". What a concept.
979 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
981 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
983 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
987 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
988 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
990 *** C Functions removed
992 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
993 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
994 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
995 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
996 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
997 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
998 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
1000 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
1002 Use scm_mem2string instead.
1004 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
1006 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
1008 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
1009 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
1011 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
1013 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
1016 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
1018 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
1020 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
1022 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments.
1026 scm_call_1 (proc, arg1);
1028 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
1030 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list
1035 scm_apply_1 (proc, arg1, args);
1037 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
1039 Create a list of the given number of elements.
1041 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
1043 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
1044 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
1046 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
1048 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
1050 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
1051 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
1052 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
1054 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1056 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
1058 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
1059 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
1060 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
1063 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1065 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
1067 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
1068 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
1070 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
1072 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
1073 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
1074 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
1075 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
1077 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
1078 scm_primitive_property_ref
1079 scm_primitive_property_set_x
1080 scm_primitive_property_del_x
1082 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
1083 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
1085 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
1087 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
1088 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
1089 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
1090 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
1092 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
1094 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
1095 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
1096 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
1097 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
1098 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
1099 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
1100 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
1102 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
1103 scm_remember_upto_here
1105 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
1107 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
1109 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
1110 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
1112 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
1114 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
1116 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
1118 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
1120 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
1122 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
1123 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
1124 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
1125 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
1126 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
1127 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
1129 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
1131 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1133 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
1134 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1135 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
1137 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
1139 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
1140 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1141 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
1143 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
1145 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
1146 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
1149 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
1152 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
1153 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
1156 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1158 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
1160 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
1162 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1164 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
1166 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
1168 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
1169 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
1170 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
1171 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
1172 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
1173 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
1174 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
1175 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
1176 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
1177 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
1178 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
1179 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
1180 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
1181 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
1182 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
1184 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
1185 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
1186 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
1187 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
1188 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
1189 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
1190 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
1191 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
1192 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1193 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
1194 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
1195 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
1196 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
1197 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
1198 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
1199 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1200 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1201 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
1202 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
1203 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
1204 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
1205 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
1206 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
1207 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
1208 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
1209 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
1210 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
1211 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
1212 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
1214 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
1216 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
1218 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
1219 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
1221 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
1223 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
1225 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
1227 Use scm_string_hash instead.
1229 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
1231 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
1233 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
1235 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
1237 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
1240 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
1241 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
1243 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
1245 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
1247 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
1249 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
1251 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
1253 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
1255 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
1257 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
1260 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
1262 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
1264 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
1266 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
1267 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
1269 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
1270 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
1272 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
1274 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
1275 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
1276 scm_module_define, scm_define.
1278 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
1280 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
1282 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
1283 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
1285 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
1286 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
1287 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
1288 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
1290 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
1291 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
1292 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
1294 Use the new ones from above instead.
1296 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
1298 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
1299 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
1300 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
1302 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
1303 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
1305 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
1306 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
1309 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
1310 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
1312 Use the new functions instead.
1314 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
1317 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
1319 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
1321 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
1324 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
1326 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
1329 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
1331 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
1334 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
1335 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
1336 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
1338 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
1340 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
1341 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
1343 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
1344 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
1345 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
1346 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
1349 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
1351 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
1352 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
1353 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
1354 inexact for an exact.
1356 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
1357 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
1358 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
1361 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
1362 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
1363 accept an inexact argument.
1365 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
1366 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
1368 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
1371 ** New number validation macros:
1372 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
1376 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
1378 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
1379 scm_unprotect_object.
1381 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
1383 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
1385 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
1388 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
1390 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
1394 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
1396 * Changes to the distribution
1398 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
1400 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
1401 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
1402 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
1403 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
1404 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
1405 obtain these programs.
1406 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
1407 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
1409 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
1410 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
1411 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
1412 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
1413 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
1415 However, this approach means that minor differences between
1416 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
1417 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
1418 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
1422 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
1425 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
1426 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
1427 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
1428 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
1430 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
1432 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
1434 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
1435 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
1437 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
1438 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
1440 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
1441 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
1443 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
1444 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
1445 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
1446 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
1448 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
1450 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
1454 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
1455 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
1457 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
1459 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
1460 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
1462 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
1463 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
1464 number of objects of that kind.
1466 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
1468 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
1469 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
1470 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
1471 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
1472 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
1474 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
1476 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
1478 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
1480 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
1483 ** New module (ice-9 time)
1485 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
1487 ** New module (ice-9 history)
1489 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
1491 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1493 ** New command line option --debug
1495 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
1497 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
1499 ** New help facility
1501 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
1502 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
1503 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
1504 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
1505 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
1506 (help) gives this text
1508 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
1509 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
1511 Examples: (help help)
1513 (help "output-string")
1515 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
1517 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
1519 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
1520 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
1523 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
1524 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
1525 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
1528 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
1529 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
1530 use absolute filenames when possible.
1532 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
1533 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
1534 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
1537 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
1539 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
1540 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
1541 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
1542 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
1544 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
1546 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
1548 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
1549 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
1550 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
1552 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
1553 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
1554 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
1556 (read-enable 'positions)
1557 (debug-enable 'debug)
1559 ** Backtraces in scripts
1561 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
1565 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
1567 at the top of the script.
1569 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
1570 The second enables backtraces.)
1572 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
1574 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
1575 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
1576 substantially faster than before.
1578 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
1579 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
1581 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
1582 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
1584 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
1586 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
1587 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
1588 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
1590 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
1591 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
1592 when this hook is run in the future.
1594 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
1595 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
1597 ** Improvements to garbage collector
1599 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
1600 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
1603 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
1604 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
1605 more and more memory for certain programs.)
1607 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
1608 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
1610 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
1611 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
1613 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
1614 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
1615 in order not to need further allocation.)
1617 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
1620 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
1621 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
1622 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
1623 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
1625 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
1627 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
1630 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
1632 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
1635 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
1636 GC in percent of total heap size
1639 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
1640 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
1642 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
1644 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
1645 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
1647 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
1649 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
1650 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
1652 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
1654 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
1655 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
1659 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
1660 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
1662 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
1664 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1666 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
1668 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
1670 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
1672 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
1673 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
1675 (simple-format port message . args)
1676 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
1677 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
1678 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
1679 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
1680 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
1681 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
1682 Does not add a trailing newline."
1684 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
1686 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
1687 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
1689 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
1690 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
1692 ** Deprecated: list*
1694 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
1696 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
1698 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
1699 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
1701 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
1702 is returned as result.
1704 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
1706 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
1708 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
1710 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
1711 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
1714 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
1716 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
1718 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
1719 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
1721 * Changes to the gh_ interface
1723 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
1725 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
1727 * Changes to the scm_ interface
1729 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
1731 Thanks to Greg Badros!
1733 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
1735 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
1736 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
1737 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
1739 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
1742 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
1744 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
1745 the readability of argument checking.
1747 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
1749 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
1751 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
1753 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
1754 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
1755 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
1756 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
1757 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
1758 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
1759 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
1761 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
1763 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
1765 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
1766 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
1768 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
1770 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
1771 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
1774 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
1776 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
1777 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
1778 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
1780 Further, it is recommended not to rely on implementation details for guile's
1781 current implementation of bignums. It is planned to replace this
1782 implementation with gmp in the future.
1784 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
1785 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
1786 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
1788 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
1789 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
1790 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
1791 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
1792 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
1793 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
1794 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
1796 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
1797 scm_end_input (object);
1798 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
1799 ptob->flush (object);
1801 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
1802 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
1805 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
1807 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
1809 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
1810 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
1811 removed in a future version.
1813 ** The format of error message strings has changed
1815 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
1816 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
1817 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
1818 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
1820 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
1821 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
1823 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
1826 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
1828 in your configure.in.
1830 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
1835 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
1841 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
1843 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
1847 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
1848 (define make-message string-append)
1850 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
1852 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
1856 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
1861 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
1865 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
1867 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
1868 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
1870 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
1872 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
1873 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
1874 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
1875 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
1876 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
1877 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
1879 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
1880 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
1881 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
1883 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
1884 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
1885 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
1888 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
1889 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
1890 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
1891 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
1892 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
1894 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
1895 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
1896 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
1897 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
1898 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
1899 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
1900 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
1902 Destructors are not yet implemented.
1904 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
1905 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
1906 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
1908 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
1909 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
1910 KEY in the calling thread.
1912 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
1913 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
1914 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
1915 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
1916 associated with the key.
1918 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
1920 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
1921 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
1923 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
1925 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
1926 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
1927 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
1929 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
1931 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
1932 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
1934 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
1936 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
1938 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
1939 returned is undefined.
1941 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
1942 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
1943 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
1945 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
1946 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
1947 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
1949 ** New C level GC hooks
1951 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
1953 scm_before_gc_c_hook
1956 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
1957 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
1958 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
1960 scm_before_mark_c_hook
1961 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
1962 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
1964 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
1965 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
1968 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
1970 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
1971 allocation parameters
1973 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
1974 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
1975 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
1979 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
1980 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
1981 scm_default_max_segment_size
1983 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
1985 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
1986 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
1988 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
1990 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
1991 object and count on the object being protected until
1992 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
1994 The functions also have better time complexity.
1996 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
1997 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
1998 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
1999 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
2000 are no longer needed.
2002 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
2004 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
2005 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
2006 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
2007 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
2009 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
2011 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
2013 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
2015 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
2016 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
2017 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
2018 until this issue has been settled.
2020 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
2022 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
2024 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
2027 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
2029 * Changes to system call interfaces:
2031 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
2032 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
2033 descriptors were checked.
2035 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
2036 atomically written to a pipe.
2038 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
2039 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
2040 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
2041 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
2042 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
2043 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
2044 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
2047 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
2048 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
2049 is changed without calling tzset.
2051 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
2053 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
2054 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
2055 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
2057 (define write-network-long
2058 (lambda (value port)
2059 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2060 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
2061 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
2063 (define read-network-long
2065 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2066 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
2067 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
2069 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
2070 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
2072 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
2073 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
2074 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
2075 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
2077 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
2078 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
2079 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
2080 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
2084 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
2086 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2090 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
2091 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
2092 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
2098 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
2099 for a description of available commands.
2101 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
2102 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
2103 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
2105 (debug-enable 'backwards)
2107 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
2108 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
2110 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
2112 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
2114 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
2115 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
2116 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
2117 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
2118 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
2119 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
2122 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
2124 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
2125 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
2126 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
2127 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
2129 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
2130 the file and should not be affected by this change.
2132 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
2134 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2136 ** Readline support has changed again.
2138 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
2139 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
2140 to activate readline is now
2142 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
2145 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
2147 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
2148 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
2149 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
2152 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
2153 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
2154 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
2157 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
2158 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
2159 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
2160 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
2161 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
2162 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
2164 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
2165 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
2167 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
2169 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
2170 object it receives is the same string passed to
2171 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
2172 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
2173 string, not the suffix.
2175 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
2176 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
2177 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
2179 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
2181 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
2182 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
2183 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
2184 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
2187 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2189 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
2191 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
2192 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
2193 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
2194 appear from left to right.
2196 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
2199 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
2201 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
2202 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
2204 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2208 *** New function: hook? OBJ
2210 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
2212 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
2214 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
2215 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
2216 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
2218 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
2220 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
2222 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
2224 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
2227 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
2229 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
2230 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
2231 mentioning it here anyway.
2233 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
2235 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
2236 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
2237 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
2238 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
2241 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
2243 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
2245 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
2247 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
2248 otherwise return #f.
2250 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
2252 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
2253 returned by `opendir'.
2255 ** New function: using-readline?
2257 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
2259 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
2261 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
2262 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
2264 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2266 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
2268 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
2269 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
2270 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
2272 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
2274 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
2275 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
2277 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
2279 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
2280 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
2281 documentation slots are not yet used.
2283 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
2285 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
2286 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
2287 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
2292 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
2293 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
2294 (string-append x y))
2296 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
2297 can also be used for concatenating strings.
2299 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
2300 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
2301 be made in a clean way.]
2303 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
2305 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
2307 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
2309 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
2310 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
2312 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2314 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
2316 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
2318 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
2320 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
2321 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
2322 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
2323 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
2326 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2328 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
2330 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
2332 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
2334 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
2335 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
2337 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2339 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
2341 Evaluates the body of a special form.
2343 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
2345 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
2346 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
2347 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
2348 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
2349 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
2350 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
2352 This should not make any difference for most users.
2354 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
2356 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
2357 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
2359 *** New functions for applying generic functions
2361 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
2362 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
2363 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
2364 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
2365 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
2367 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
2369 It is now replaced by:
2371 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
2373 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
2374 binds a variable named NAME to it.
2376 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
2378 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
2379 This might change when we get the new module system.
2381 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
2385 Changes since Guile 1.3:
2387 * Changes to mailing lists
2389 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
2391 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
2394 * Changes to the distribution
2396 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
2398 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
2399 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
2400 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
2401 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
2402 you explicitly specify it.
2404 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
2405 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
2406 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
2407 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
2408 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
2411 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
2412 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
2413 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
2414 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
2416 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
2417 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
2418 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
2421 You can activate the readline support by issuing
2423 (use-modules (readline-activator))
2426 from your ".guile" file, for example.
2428 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2430 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
2431 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
2432 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
2433 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
2435 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
2436 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
2439 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2441 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
2442 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
2443 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
2444 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
2445 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
2446 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
2447 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
2448 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
2460 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
2461 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
2462 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
2463 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
2464 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
2469 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
2470 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
2478 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
2483 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
2484 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
2487 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
2488 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
2489 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
2490 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
2492 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
2494 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
2496 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
2497 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
2499 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
2501 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
2503 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
2504 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
2506 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
2509 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
2511 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
2513 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
2515 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
2517 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
2519 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
2521 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
2522 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
2523 when the hook was created.
2525 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
2526 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
2527 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
2528 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
2529 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
2530 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
2531 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
2532 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
2533 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
2535 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
2536 the dlopen family of functions.
2538 ** New function `provided?'
2540 - Function: provided? FEATURE
2541 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
2542 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
2543 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
2545 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
2547 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
2548 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
2549 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
2550 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
2553 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
2554 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
2555 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
2556 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
2558 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
2559 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
2560 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
2563 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
2564 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
2565 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
2566 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
2567 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
2568 but with the flag set.
2570 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
2572 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
2573 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
2575 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
2576 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
2577 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
2578 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
2579 available Scheme format implementations.
2581 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
2582 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
2583 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
2584 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
2585 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
2586 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
2587 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
2588 output is to the current error port if available by the
2589 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
2592 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
2593 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
2594 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
2595 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
2596 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
2597 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
2598 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
2599 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
2601 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
2602 be executed at a time.
2605 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
2607 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
2608 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
2609 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
2611 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
2612 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
2613 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
2614 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
2615 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
2616 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
2617 general form of a directive is:
2619 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
2621 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
2623 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
2625 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
2626 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
2627 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
2630 Any (print as `display' does).
2634 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
2638 S-expression (print as `write' does).
2642 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
2648 print number sign always.
2651 print comma separated.
2653 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
2659 print number sign always.
2662 print comma separated.
2664 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
2670 print number sign always.
2673 print comma separated.
2675 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
2681 print number sign always.
2684 print comma separated.
2686 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
2691 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
2695 print a number as a Roman numeral.
2698 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
2701 print a number as an ordinal English number.
2704 print a number as a cardinal English number.
2709 prints `y' and `ies'.
2712 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
2715 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
2720 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
2724 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
2727 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
2728 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
2730 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2733 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
2734 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
2736 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2739 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
2741 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
2743 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2746 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
2748 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
2750 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2753 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
2756 The sign appears before the padding.
2764 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
2766 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
2771 print N page separators.
2781 newline is ignored, white space left.
2784 newline is left, white space ignored.
2789 relative tabulation.
2795 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
2797 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
2800 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
2802 converts by `string-capitalize'.
2805 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
2808 converts by `string-upcase'.
2811 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
2813 jumps N arguments forward.
2816 jumps 1 argument backward.
2819 jumps N arguments backward.
2822 jumps to the 0th argument.
2825 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
2827 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
2828 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
2830 take argument from N.
2833 true test conditional.
2836 if-else-then conditional.
2842 default clause follows.
2845 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
2847 at most N iterations.
2850 args from next arg (a list of lists).
2853 args from the rest of arguments.
2856 args from the rest args (lists).
2867 aborts if N <= M <= K
2869 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
2872 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
2875 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
2881 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
2883 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
2885 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
2886 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
2887 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
2888 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
2889 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
2890 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
2894 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
2898 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
2904 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
2907 Print a `#\space' character
2909 print N `#\space' characters.
2912 Print a `#\tab' character
2914 print N `#\tab' characters.
2917 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
2918 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
2919 must be a positive decimal number.
2922 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
2923 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
2924 be processed by `read'.
2927 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
2928 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
2929 be processed by `read'.
2932 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
2935 prints format version.
2938 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
2939 and format it accordingly.
2941 *** Configuration Variables
2943 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
2944 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
2945 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
2946 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
2949 format:symbol-case-conv
2950 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
2951 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
2952 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
2953 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
2954 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
2956 format:iobj-case-conv
2957 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
2958 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
2961 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
2964 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
2970 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
2971 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
2972 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
2973 `format' padding style.
2976 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
2977 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
2978 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
2979 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
2983 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
2984 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
2985 directive parameters or modifiers)).
2988 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
2989 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
2990 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
2991 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
2992 parameters or modifiers)).
2995 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
2997 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
2999 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
3000 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
3002 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
3003 string-downcase! functions.
3005 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
3006 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
3008 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
3011 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
3014 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
3015 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
3017 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
3019 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
3020 the symbol had be read by `read'.
3022 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
3023 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
3024 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
3025 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
3026 would if STRING were input.
3028 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
3030 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
3031 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
3032 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
3033 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
3036 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
3038 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
3039 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
3042 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
3044 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
3045 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
3047 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
3048 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
3050 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
3051 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
3052 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
3053 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
3055 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
3056 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
3058 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
3059 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
3060 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
3062 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
3063 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
3065 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
3066 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
3067 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
3068 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
3069 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
3071 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
3072 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
3073 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
3074 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
3075 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
3076 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
3078 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
3079 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
3080 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
3083 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
3084 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
3085 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
3086 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
3087 the following grammar:
3088 ((apples (single-char #\a))
3089 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
3090 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
3091 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
3092 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
3093 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
3094 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
3095 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
3096 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
3097 last option in its combination)
3099 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
3100 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
3101 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
3102 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
3104 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
3105 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
3106 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
3108 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3109 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3110 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
3112 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
3113 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
3114 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
3115 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
3116 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
3117 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
3118 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
3119 ordinary argument strings.
3121 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
3122 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
3123 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
3124 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
3126 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
3127 as a list, associated with the empty list.
3129 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
3130 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
3131 - a required option is omitted
3132 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
3133 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
3134 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
3135 - an option predicate fails
3140 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
3143 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
3144 (verbose (required? #f)
3147 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
3148 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
3149 (predicate ,string?))))
3151 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
3152 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3154 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3155 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
3156 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
3157 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
3160 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
3162 It will be removed in a few releases.
3164 ** New syntax: lambda*
3165 ** New syntax: define*
3166 ** New syntax: define*-public
3167 ** New syntax: defmacro*
3168 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
3169 Guile now supports optional arguments.
3171 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
3172 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
3173 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
3174 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
3175 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
3177 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
3178 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
3179 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
3181 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
3183 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
3184 and examples for `lambda*':
3187 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
3189 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
3190 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
3191 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
3192 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
3193 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
3194 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
3195 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
3196 can be checked with the bound? macro.
3198 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
3200 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
3201 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
3202 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
3203 are given as keywords are bound to values.
3205 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
3206 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
3207 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
3208 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
3209 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
3210 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
3211 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
3212 and until the procedure is called.
3214 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
3216 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
3217 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
3218 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
3219 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
3220 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
3221 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
3222 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
3223 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
3224 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
3225 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
3227 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
3228 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
3229 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
3230 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
3233 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
3235 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
3236 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
3237 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
3238 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
3240 ** New syntax: and-let*
3241 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
3243 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
3244 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
3245 (<variable> <expression>)
3248 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
3249 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
3250 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
3253 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
3254 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
3255 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
3256 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
3257 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
3258 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
3259 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
3261 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
3262 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
3263 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
3264 shadow earlier bindings.
3266 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
3268 ** New sorting functions
3270 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
3271 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
3272 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
3273 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
3275 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
3276 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
3279 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
3280 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
3281 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
3283 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
3284 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
3285 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
3286 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
3288 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
3289 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
3290 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
3291 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
3292 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
3295 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
3296 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
3297 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
3298 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
3299 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
3300 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
3302 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
3303 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
3304 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
3306 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
3307 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
3308 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
3311 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
3312 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
3313 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
3315 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
3316 Added for compatibility with scsh.
3318 ** New built-in random number support
3320 *** New function: random N [STATE]
3321 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
3322 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
3323 returned have a uniform distribution.
3325 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
3326 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
3327 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
3328 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
3329 effect of the `random' operation.
3331 *** New variable: *random-state*
3332 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
3333 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
3334 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
3335 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
3336 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
3339 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
3340 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
3341 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
3342 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
3343 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
3345 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
3346 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
3347 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
3348 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
3349 initialized using SEED.
3351 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
3352 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
3353 range between 0 and 1.
3355 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
3356 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
3357 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
3358 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
3359 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
3360 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
3361 or a uniform vector of doubles.
3363 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
3364 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
3365 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
3366 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
3367 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
3368 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
3370 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
3371 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
3372 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
3373 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
3375 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
3376 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
3377 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
3378 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
3380 *** New function: random:exp STATE
3381 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
3382 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
3384 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
3386 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
3389 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
3390 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
3393 ** New function: make-guardian
3394 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
3395 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
3396 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
3397 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
3398 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
3400 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
3401 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
3402 one object if at all.
3404 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
3405 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
3406 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
3408 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
3409 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
3410 read again in last-in first-out order.
3412 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
3413 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
3415 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
3417 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
3418 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
3419 file position is used.
3421 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
3422 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
3423 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
3425 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
3426 redefined using seek.
3428 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
3429 size is not supplied.
3431 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
3432 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
3434 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
3435 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
3437 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
3439 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
3440 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
3441 and returns the contents as a single string.
3443 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
3444 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
3445 lists in serial order.
3447 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
3448 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
3449 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
3451 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
3452 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
3453 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
3454 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
3456 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
3457 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
3458 and #f if an error occured.
3460 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
3462 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
3463 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
3464 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
3465 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
3467 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
3469 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
3472 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
3474 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
3477 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3481 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
3482 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
3484 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
3485 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
3489 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3491 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
3493 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3494 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3496 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3498 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
3499 might change when we get the new module system.
3501 ** The smob interface
3503 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
3504 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
3506 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
3508 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
3512 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
3513 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
3514 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
3515 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
3516 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
3517 will be freed by the default free function.
3519 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
3520 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
3521 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3522 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3524 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
3525 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
3526 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3527 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3529 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
3531 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
3532 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
3536 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
3537 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3538 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3540 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
3541 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
3542 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3543 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3545 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
3546 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
3547 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
3549 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
3550 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
3551 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
3552 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
3554 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
3555 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
3556 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
3558 *** scm_newptob has been removed
3562 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
3564 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
3565 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
3566 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
3568 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
3569 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
3570 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
3572 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
3573 a string port's buffer.
3575 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
3576 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
3577 function pointers which together define the current random number
3578 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
3579 number library functions.
3581 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
3584 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
3585 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
3588 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
3589 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
3591 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
3592 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
3594 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
3595 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
3598 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
3599 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
3600 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
3601 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
3603 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
3604 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
3605 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
3606 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
3607 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
3608 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
3609 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
3611 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
3612 by libguile and the application.
3614 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
3615 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
3616 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
3617 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
3619 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
3620 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
3622 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
3623 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
3624 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
3626 ** Random number library functions
3627 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
3628 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
3629 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
3631 The default random state is stored in:
3633 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
3634 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
3635 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
3640 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
3642 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
3643 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
3644 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
3645 isn't a random state.
3647 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
3648 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
3650 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
3651 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
3652 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
3653 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
3655 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3656 Return 32 random bits.
3658 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3659 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
3661 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3662 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
3664 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3665 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
3667 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
3668 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
3670 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
3671 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
3672 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
3676 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
3678 * Changes to the distribution
3680 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
3681 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
3682 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
3685 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
3686 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
3687 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
3689 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
3690 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
3691 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
3692 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
3695 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
3696 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
3697 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
3699 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3701 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
3703 *** Function: batch-mode?
3705 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
3708 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
3710 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
3711 case has not been implemented.
3713 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
3714 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
3715 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
3718 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
3719 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
3721 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
3723 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
3725 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
3727 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
3728 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
3731 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
3732 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
3733 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
3734 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
3737 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
3739 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
3740 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
3741 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
3742 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
3743 find those libraries.
3745 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
3746 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
3749 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
3751 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
3752 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
3753 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
3754 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
3756 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
3757 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
3758 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
3762 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
3764 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
3765 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
3766 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
3769 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
3770 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
3771 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
3772 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
3774 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
3775 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
3778 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
3779 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
3780 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
3781 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
3782 compiler where to find the libraries.
3784 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
3785 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
3786 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
3788 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
3789 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
3790 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
3791 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
3792 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
3796 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3798 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
3799 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
3800 internationalization support.
3802 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
3803 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
3804 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
3805 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
3806 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
3808 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
3809 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
3810 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
3811 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
3812 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
3814 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
3815 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
3816 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
3817 any GNU mirror site.
3819 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
3821 ** New function: add-history STRING
3822 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
3823 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
3824 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
3826 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
3828 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
3829 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
3830 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
3833 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
3834 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
3835 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
3837 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
3839 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
3842 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
3843 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
3846 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
3847 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
3848 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
3849 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
3850 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
3851 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
3853 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
3854 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
3855 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
3856 of the form mentioned above.
3858 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
3859 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
3860 returned in the special `rest' list.
3862 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
3863 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
3865 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
3867 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
3869 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
3871 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
3872 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
3873 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
3874 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
3875 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
3876 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
3877 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
3878 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
3881 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
3883 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
3885 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
3886 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
3889 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
3890 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
3891 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
3895 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
3896 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
3897 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
3898 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
3899 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
3900 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
3901 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
3902 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
3905 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
3907 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
3908 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
3909 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
3911 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
3913 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
3914 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
3916 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
3917 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
3918 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
3920 Why do we have this function?
3921 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
3922 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
3923 primitive, and display it differently, and
3924 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
3925 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
3928 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
3929 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
3932 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
3933 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
3934 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
3935 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
3937 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
3938 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
3941 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
3942 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
3944 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
3946 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
3947 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
3948 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
3949 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
3950 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
3951 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
3952 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
3955 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
3957 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
3958 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
3960 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
3961 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
3962 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
3963 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
3964 properly continue the print chain.
3966 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
3967 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
3968 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
3969 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
3970 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
3971 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
3972 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
3973 print-state, it is simply ignored.
3975 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
3976 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
3977 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
3978 safest to not check for these pairs.
3980 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
3981 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
3982 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
3983 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
3985 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
3987 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
3988 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
3990 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
3992 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
3994 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
3995 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
3996 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
3998 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
3999 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
4000 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
4002 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
4003 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
4004 the following functions and macros:
4006 Function: make-fluid
4008 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
4009 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
4010 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
4011 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
4012 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
4014 Function: fluid? OBJ
4016 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
4018 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
4019 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
4021 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
4022 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
4024 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
4026 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
4027 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
4028 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
4029 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
4030 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
4031 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
4032 modified by `with-fluids*'.
4034 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
4036 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
4037 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
4038 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
4039 should evaluate to a fluid.
4041 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
4043 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
4044 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
4045 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
4046 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
4047 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
4049 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
4052 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
4054 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
4056 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
4058 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
4061 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
4062 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
4063 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
4064 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
4065 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
4068 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
4069 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
4070 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
4072 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
4073 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
4074 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
4076 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
4077 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
4078 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4079 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
4081 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
4082 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
4083 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4084 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
4086 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
4087 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
4088 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
4089 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
4091 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
4092 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
4093 their revealed counts set to zero.
4095 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4096 Returns an integer file descriptor.
4098 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4099 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
4101 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4102 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
4104 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4105 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
4106 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
4108 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
4109 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
4110 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
4112 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
4113 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
4114 default environment inherited by child processes.
4116 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
4117 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
4118 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
4120 The return value is unspecified.
4122 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
4123 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
4124 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
4125 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
4126 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
4128 The return value is unspecified.
4130 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
4131 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
4139 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
4140 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
4143 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
4146 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
4147 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
4148 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
4150 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
4151 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
4152 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
4153 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
4156 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
4157 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
4159 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
4160 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
4161 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
4162 the `environ' procedure.
4164 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
4165 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
4168 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
4169 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
4171 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
4172 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
4173 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
4174 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
4176 *** procedure: times
4177 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
4178 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
4179 return a selected component:
4182 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
4186 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
4189 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
4193 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
4194 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
4198 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
4199 terminated child processes.
4201 ** Removed: list-length
4202 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
4203 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
4205 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
4207 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
4209 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
4211 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
4212 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
4213 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
4214 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
4216 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
4217 extra complexity it introduces.
4219 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
4220 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
4222 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
4223 variable to any non-empty value.
4225 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
4226 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
4228 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4230 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
4231 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
4233 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
4235 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
4236 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
4238 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
4240 ** vector handling routines
4242 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
4243 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
4244 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
4245 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
4246 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
4248 ** pair and list routines
4250 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
4253 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
4255 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
4258 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4260 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
4262 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
4263 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
4264 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
4265 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
4266 site-specific initialization code.
4268 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
4269 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
4270 initialization processes.
4272 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
4273 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
4274 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
4275 initialized properly.
4277 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
4278 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
4279 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
4281 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
4282 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
4283 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
4284 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
4285 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
4287 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
4289 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
4290 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
4291 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
4292 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
4293 objects the smob refers to get marked.
4295 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
4296 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
4297 which look like this:
4300 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
4302 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
4303 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
4306 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
4307 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
4310 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
4312 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
4313 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
4314 you will need to change your functions slightly.
4316 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
4317 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
4318 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
4319 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
4320 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
4322 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
4323 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
4325 int (*free) (SCM port);
4326 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
4327 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
4328 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
4332 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
4333 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
4334 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
4336 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
4339 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
4340 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
4341 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
4343 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
4344 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
4345 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
4348 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
4352 struct timeval *timeout);
4354 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
4355 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
4356 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
4357 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
4358 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
4359 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
4361 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
4362 scm_catch_body_t body,
4364 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
4367 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
4368 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
4369 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
4370 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
4371 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
4372 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
4374 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
4376 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
4379 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
4380 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
4381 spawning threads from application C code.
4383 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
4384 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
4385 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
4386 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
4387 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
4388 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
4390 ** Removed functions:
4392 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
4393 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
4395 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
4397 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
4398 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
4400 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
4402 ** mbstrings are now removed
4404 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
4405 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
4407 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
4409 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
4410 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
4411 their new names and arguments:
4413 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
4414 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
4415 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
4416 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
4419 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
4421 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
4423 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
4426 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
4428 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
4429 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
4430 pass a #f arg to catch.
4432 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
4434 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
4435 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
4438 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
4439 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
4440 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
4441 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
4442 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
4443 reclaim its storage.
4445 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
4446 worrying that some other function you call will call
4447 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
4448 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
4449 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
4450 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
4453 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
4455 * Changes to the distribution
4457 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
4458 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
4461 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
4462 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
4464 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4465 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4467 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
4469 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
4470 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
4471 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
4473 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4475 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
4476 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
4477 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
4478 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
4479 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
4480 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
4482 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
4483 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
4484 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
4487 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
4488 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
4489 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
4490 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
4492 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
4493 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
4494 libraries to your link command:
4496 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
4497 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
4498 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
4499 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
4501 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
4502 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
4503 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
4505 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4507 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
4508 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
4511 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
4513 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
4514 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
4515 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
4516 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
4517 searched is system dependent.
4519 (dynamic-object? VAL)
4521 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
4523 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
4525 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
4526 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
4528 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
4530 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
4531 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
4532 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
4533 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
4534 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
4537 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
4539 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
4540 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
4541 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
4542 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
4543 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
4545 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
4547 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
4548 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
4550 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
4552 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
4553 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
4554 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
4557 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
4559 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
4560 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
4561 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
4562 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
4564 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
4565 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
4567 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
4569 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
4570 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
4572 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
4574 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
4575 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
4583 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
4585 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
4586 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
4587 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
4588 a more informative way.
4590 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
4591 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
4592 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
4593 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
4594 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
4595 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
4597 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
4598 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
4601 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
4602 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
4603 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
4606 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
4607 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
4608 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
4609 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
4610 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
4611 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
4613 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
4614 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
4615 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
4616 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
4619 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
4620 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
4621 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
4622 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
4623 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
4624 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
4626 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
4627 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
4628 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
4629 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
4630 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
4632 *** regexp functions
4634 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
4635 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
4636 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
4638 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
4639 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
4640 with SCSH regular expressions.
4642 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
4643 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
4644 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
4645 position of STR at which to begin matching.
4647 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
4648 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
4649 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
4650 `string-match' returns `#f'.
4652 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
4653 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
4654 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
4655 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
4656 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
4657 match strings against the compiled regexp.
4659 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
4660 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
4661 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
4662 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
4663 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
4665 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
4667 **** Constant: regexp/extended
4668 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
4669 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
4670 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
4672 **** Constant: regexp/icase
4673 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
4674 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
4676 **** Constant: regexp/newline
4677 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
4679 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
4682 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
4683 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
4684 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
4686 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
4687 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
4688 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
4690 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
4691 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
4692 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
4693 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
4694 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
4697 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
4699 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
4700 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
4701 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
4702 used when different portions of a string are passed to
4703 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
4704 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
4706 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
4707 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
4708 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
4710 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
4711 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
4714 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
4715 and replace them with the contents of another string.
4717 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
4718 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
4719 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
4720 may be one of the following arguments:
4722 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
4724 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
4726 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
4727 the regexp match is written.
4729 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
4730 following the regexp match is written.
4732 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
4733 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
4736 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
4737 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
4738 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
4739 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
4740 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
4741 which should be matched against this regular expression.
4743 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
4746 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
4747 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
4748 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
4749 written out to PORT.
4751 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
4752 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
4753 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
4754 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
4755 will return after processing a single match.
4757 *** Match Structures
4759 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
4760 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
4761 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
4762 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
4763 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
4764 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
4767 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
4768 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
4769 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
4770 information about the original target string that was matched against a
4771 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
4773 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
4774 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
4775 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
4777 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
4778 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
4779 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
4780 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
4781 number N did not match, return `#f'.
4783 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
4784 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
4786 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
4787 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
4789 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
4790 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
4792 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
4793 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
4795 **** Function: match:count MATCH
4796 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
4797 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
4798 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
4800 **** Function: match:string MATCH
4801 Return the original TARGET string.
4803 *** Backslash Escapes
4805 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
4806 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
4807 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
4808 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
4809 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
4810 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
4812 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
4813 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
4814 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
4815 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
4816 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
4817 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
4818 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
4819 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
4821 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
4822 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
4823 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
4824 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
4825 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
4826 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
4827 each match a single backslash in the target string.
4829 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
4830 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
4831 return the resulting string.
4833 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
4834 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
4835 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
4836 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
4837 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
4838 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
4839 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
4840 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
4841 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
4842 translated to the single character `*'.
4844 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
4845 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
4846 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
4847 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
4848 consecutive backslashes:
4850 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
4852 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
4853 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
4854 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
4856 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
4857 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
4858 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
4859 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
4860 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
4861 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
4863 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
4865 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
4866 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
4867 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
4868 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
4869 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
4870 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
4871 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
4872 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
4873 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
4874 cumbersome escape syntax.
4876 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4878 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4880 * Changes to system call interfaces:
4882 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
4885 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
4887 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
4889 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
4892 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
4893 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
4894 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
4895 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
4896 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
4898 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
4899 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
4900 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
4901 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
4902 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
4903 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
4904 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
4907 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
4908 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
4909 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
4912 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
4913 `force-output' on every port open for output.
4915 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
4916 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
4917 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
4918 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
4919 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
4920 installed, you can say:
4922 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
4925 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4927 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
4928 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
4929 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
4930 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
4931 new dynamic roots and threads.
4934 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
4936 * Changes to the distribution.
4938 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
4940 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
4941 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
4942 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
4943 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
4944 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
4945 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
4946 programming language. These are packaged together because the
4947 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
4949 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
4952 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
4953 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
4958 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4960 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
4961 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
4963 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
4964 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
4965 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
4966 the (command-line) function.
4967 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
4968 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
4969 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
4971 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
4972 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
4973 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
4974 command line arguments
4975 -ds do -s script at this point
4976 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
4977 -h, --help display this help and exit
4978 -v, --version display version information and exit
4979 \ read arguments from following script lines
4981 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
4982 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
4984 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
4987 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
4991 (main (command-line))
4993 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
4995 ekko a speckled gecko
4997 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
4998 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
4999 following list of command-line arguments:
5001 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
5003 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
5004 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
5005 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
5006 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
5007 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5009 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
5011 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
5013 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
5014 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
5017 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
5018 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
5019 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
5020 SCSH) for circumventing them.
5022 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
5023 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
5024 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
5025 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
5027 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
5031 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5035 If the user invokes this script as follows:
5037 ekko a speckled gecko
5039 Unix expands this into
5041 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
5043 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
5044 read from the second line of the script, producing:
5046 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
5048 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
5049 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5051 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
5052 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
5053 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
5054 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
5055 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
5056 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
5057 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
5058 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
5059 it only terminates the argument list.)
5060 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
5061 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
5062 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
5063 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
5064 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
5065 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
5066 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
5067 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
5069 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5071 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
5072 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
5073 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
5074 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
5075 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
5077 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
5078 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
5079 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
5081 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
5083 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
5084 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
5085 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
5086 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
5089 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
5090 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5091 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5093 * Changes to Scheme functions
5095 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
5096 and disabled by default.
5098 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
5099 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
5100 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
5101 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
5103 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
5105 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
5107 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
5108 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
5110 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
5111 (read-set! keywords #f)
5113 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
5114 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
5115 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
5118 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
5119 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
5120 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
5123 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
5124 support for Scheme functions.
5126 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5127 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
5128 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
5129 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
5132 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5133 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
5134 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
5137 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
5138 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
5139 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
5142 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
5143 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
5144 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
5145 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
5146 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
5147 display the result as a prompt.
5148 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
5150 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
5151 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
5152 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
5155 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
5156 procedure of zero arguments.
5158 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
5159 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
5160 argument is bound in the current module.
5162 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
5163 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
5164 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
5165 public bindings into the current module.
5167 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
5168 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
5170 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
5171 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
5173 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
5174 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
5176 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
5177 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
5179 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
5180 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
5182 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
5183 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
5184 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
5185 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
5186 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
5188 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
5189 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
5190 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
5191 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
5193 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
5196 ** Changes to I/O functions
5198 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
5199 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
5200 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
5202 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
5203 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
5204 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
5206 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
5207 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
5209 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
5210 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
5211 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
5212 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
5214 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
5216 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
5217 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
5219 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
5220 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
5221 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
5222 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
5223 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
5226 'trim omit delimiter from result
5227 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
5228 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
5229 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
5231 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
5233 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
5234 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
5236 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
5237 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
5238 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
5239 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
5240 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
5242 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
5243 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
5244 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
5246 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
5247 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
5248 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
5249 above, and defaults to 'peek.
5251 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
5252 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
5254 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
5255 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
5257 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
5259 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
5260 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
5261 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
5262 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
5263 a delimiting character.
5264 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
5266 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
5267 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
5268 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
5269 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
5270 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
5271 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
5273 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
5274 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
5276 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
5277 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
5278 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
5280 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
5281 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
5282 the array to read and write.
5284 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
5285 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
5288 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
5290 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
5293 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
5294 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
5295 Values for COMMAND are:
5297 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
5298 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
5299 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
5300 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
5301 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
5302 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
5303 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
5304 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
5306 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
5308 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
5309 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
5310 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
5311 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
5312 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
5313 corresponding return set will be the same.
5315 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
5318 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
5319 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
5320 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
5321 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
5322 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
5323 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
5324 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
5325 special file being created.
5327 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
5328 clashing with various SCSH forks.
5330 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
5331 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
5332 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
5333 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
5334 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
5335 and originating address.
5337 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
5338 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
5339 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
5341 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
5344 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
5345 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
5348 (status:exit-val STATUS)
5349 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
5350 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
5351 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
5352 this function returns #f.
5354 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
5355 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
5356 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
5359 (status:term-sig STATUS)
5360 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
5361 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
5364 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
5365 a valid STATUS value.
5367 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
5369 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
5370 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
5372 Component Accessor Setter
5373 ========================= ============ ============
5374 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
5375 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
5376 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
5377 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
5378 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
5379 year tm:year set-tm:year
5380 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
5381 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
5382 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
5383 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
5384 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
5386 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
5387 describing the host system:
5390 ============================================== ================
5391 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
5392 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
5393 release level of the operating system utsname:release
5394 version level of the operating system utsname:version
5395 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
5397 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
5398 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
5399 system's user database:
5402 ====================== =================
5403 user name passwd:name
5404 user password passwd:passwd
5407 real name passwd:gecos
5408 home directory passwd:dir
5409 shell program passwd:shell
5411 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
5412 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
5413 system's group database:
5416 ======================= ============
5417 group name group:name
5418 group password group:passwd
5420 group members group:mem
5422 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
5423 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
5427 ========================= ===============
5428 official name of host hostent:name
5429 alias list hostent:aliases
5430 host address type hostent:addrtype
5431 length of address hostent:length
5432 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
5434 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
5435 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
5439 ========================= ===============
5440 official name of net netent:name
5441 alias list netent:aliases
5442 net number type netent:addrtype
5443 net number netent:net
5445 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
5446 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
5450 ========================= ===============
5451 official protocol name protoent:name
5452 alias list protoent:aliases
5453 protocol number protoent:proto
5455 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
5456 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
5460 ========================= ===============
5461 official service name servent:name
5462 alias list servent:aliases
5463 port number servent:port
5464 protocol to use servent:proto
5466 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
5467 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
5470 ======================================== ===============
5471 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
5472 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
5473 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
5474 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
5476 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
5477 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
5478 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
5480 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
5481 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
5483 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
5484 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
5486 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
5487 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
5489 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
5491 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
5493 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
5494 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
5495 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
5497 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
5498 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
5499 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
5500 return the remaining characters as a string.
5502 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
5503 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
5504 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
5506 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
5508 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5510 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
5513 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
5516 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
5517 and returns the array
5519 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
5520 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
5521 the user to interpret the data both ways.
5523 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5525 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
5526 symbol's value from C code:
5528 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
5529 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
5530 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
5531 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
5533 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
5534 without assigning them a value.
5536 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
5537 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
5538 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
5540 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
5541 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
5542 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
5544 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
5545 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
5547 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
5548 doesn't actually care about that.
5550 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
5551 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
5552 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
5554 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
5555 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
5556 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
5557 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
5558 which we have just created and initialized.
5560 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
5561 should one occur. We call it like this:
5562 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
5564 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
5565 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
5566 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
5567 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
5568 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
5569 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
5572 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
5573 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
5574 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
5575 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
5576 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
5577 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
5578 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
5581 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
5582 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
5583 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
5584 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
5585 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
5588 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
5589 scm_internal_catch, except:
5591 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
5592 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
5593 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
5594 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
5597 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
5598 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
5599 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
5601 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
5602 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
5603 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
5604 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
5607 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
5608 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
5609 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
5611 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
5612 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
5613 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
5614 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
5615 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
5617 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
5618 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
5619 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
5621 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
5622 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
5623 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
5625 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
5626 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
5628 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
5629 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
5630 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
5633 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
5634 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
5635 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
5636 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
5637 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
5638 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
5639 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
5642 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
5643 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
5645 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
5646 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
5647 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
5648 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
5649 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
5652 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
5653 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
5655 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
5656 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
5659 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
5660 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
5662 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5665 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
5666 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
5667 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
5668 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
5669 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
5670 given the following arguments:
5672 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
5674 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
5676 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
5678 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5681 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
5682 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
5683 command-line arguments.
5685 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
5686 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
5687 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
5688 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
5689 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
5690 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
5693 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5696 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
5697 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
5699 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
5700 rearranged slightly. They are now:
5702 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5703 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
5704 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
5705 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
5707 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5708 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
5710 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5711 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
5712 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
5713 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
5715 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5716 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
5718 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
5719 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
5721 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
5723 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
5724 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
5725 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
5728 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
5729 returns a port instead of an FD object.
5731 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
5732 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
5737 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
5740 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
5742 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
5743 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
5744 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
5745 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
5747 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
5749 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
5751 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
5752 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
5753 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
5754 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
5755 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
5756 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
5757 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
5758 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
5759 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
5760 for more information.
5762 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
5763 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
5765 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
5766 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
5767 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
5768 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
5769 following two lines at the top of the file:
5771 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5774 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
5775 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
5776 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
5778 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
5780 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5782 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
5785 (display (car args))
5786 (if (pair? (cdr args))
5788 (loop (cdr args)))))
5791 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
5792 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
5793 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
5794 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
5795 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
5796 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
5800 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
5803 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
5806 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
5808 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
5809 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
5810 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
5811 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
5812 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
5815 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
5816 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
5817 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
5818 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
5819 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
5822 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
5825 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
5826 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
5827 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
5830 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
5831 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
5832 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
5834 to see a backtrace, and
5835 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
5836 to see them by default.
5840 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
5842 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
5844 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
5845 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
5848 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
5849 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
5850 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
5851 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
5854 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
5855 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
5856 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
5857 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
5858 functions which inspired them.
5860 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
5861 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
5865 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
5867 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
5869 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
5870 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
5873 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
5874 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
5875 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
5877 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
5878 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
5879 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
5880 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
5881 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
5883 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
5885 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
5886 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
5887 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
5890 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
5893 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
5895 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
5896 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
5897 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
5898 above should serve their purposes.
5900 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
5901 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
5902 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
5903 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
5905 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
5908 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
5909 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
5910 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
5911 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
5913 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
5914 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
5915 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
5916 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
5918 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
5919 for the `read' function.
5922 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
5923 to that of `integer?'.
5925 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
5926 use the R4RS names for these functions.
5928 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
5929 it simply returns the object's property list.
5931 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
5932 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
5933 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
5934 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
5936 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
5938 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
5941 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
5943 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
5944 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
5946 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
5948 void (*main_func) (),
5951 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
5952 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
5953 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
5954 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
5955 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
5957 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
5958 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
5959 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
5960 know which arguments have been processed.
5962 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
5963 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
5964 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
5965 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
5966 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
5968 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
5969 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
5970 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
5971 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
5972 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
5973 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
5974 people from making that mistake.
5976 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
5977 convenient ways to override these when desired.
5979 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
5981 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
5985 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
5988 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
5989 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
5990 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
5991 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
5994 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
5995 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
5996 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
5997 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
6000 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
6001 have been added to the Guile library.
6003 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
6004 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
6005 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
6008 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
6009 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
6010 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
6012 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
6013 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
6014 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
6015 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
6016 argument from the list.
6019 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
6022 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
6023 null-terminated string, and returns it.
6025 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
6026 to a Scheme port object.
6028 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
6029 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
6034 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
6036 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
6037 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
6038 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
6039 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
6040 code as a special datatype.
6042 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
6043 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
6044 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
6045 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
6046 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
6049 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
6050 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
6051 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
6052 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
6053 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
6055 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
6058 Copyright information:
6060 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6062 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
6063 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
6064 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
6065 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
6067 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
6068 of this document, or of portions of it,
6069 under the above conditions, provided also that they
6070 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
6075 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"