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 Guile 1.4:
9 * Changes to the distribution
11 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
13 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
14 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
15 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
16 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
17 indicate major changes in Guile.
19 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
20 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
21 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
22 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
24 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
25 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
26 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
27 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
30 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
32 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
34 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
35 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
36 See INSTALL and README for more information.
38 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
40 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
43 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
45 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
46 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
47 open-output-string, get-output-string.
49 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
51 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
53 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
56 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
58 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
60 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
62 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
63 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
66 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
68 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
70 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
71 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
80 See README there for more info.
82 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
83 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
86 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
88 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
90 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
92 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
93 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
94 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
96 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
98 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
99 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
100 to be named `and-let*', of course.
102 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
103 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
105 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
110 (oop goops active-slot)
111 (oop goops composite-slot)
113 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
114 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
115 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
117 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
119 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
120 in the default environment:
122 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
123 %read-line write-line
125 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
126 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
128 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
130 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
133 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
134 can be used for similar functionality.
136 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
138 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
139 it defines two single procedures:
141 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
143 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
144 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
145 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
148 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
150 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
151 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
152 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
155 ** New module (ice-9 match)
157 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
158 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
160 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
162 for complete documentation.
164 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
166 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
167 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
168 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
169 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
171 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
172 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
176 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
177 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
178 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
181 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
184 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
185 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
187 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
188 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
191 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
194 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
196 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
198 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
200 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
202 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
203 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
204 Scheme programs easier.
206 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
207 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
208 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
209 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
210 `cond-expand' when using this option.
213 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
214 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
216 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
219 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
221 Previously, script executed via the `-s' option would run in the
222 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
223 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
226 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
228 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
230 tag - no replacement.
231 fseek - replaced by seek.
232 list* - replaced by cons*.
234 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
238 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
239 (define m (make-safe-module))
240 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
241 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
242 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
244 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
246 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
247 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
248 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
250 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
252 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
253 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
254 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
255 from the issues related to the module system.
257 *** New function: load-extension
259 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
261 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
263 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
264 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
265 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
267 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
269 This function registers a initialization function for use by
270 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
271 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
272 support dynamic linking).
274 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
276 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
277 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
278 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
279 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
282 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
283 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
284 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
285 library and initialize it explicitely.
287 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
288 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
290 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
292 (define-module (foo bar))
294 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
296 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
298 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
299 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
301 (scheme-report-environment 5)
303 (interaction-environment)
309 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
311 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
312 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
313 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
314 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
316 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
317 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
318 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
319 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
320 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
321 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
322 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
323 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
324 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
325 one eval to the next.
327 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
328 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
329 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
330 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
331 subforms are at the top-level as well.
333 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
334 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
335 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
336 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
337 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
338 used in a lexical environment.
340 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
341 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
342 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
343 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
344 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
345 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
347 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
349 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
350 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
351 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
353 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
355 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
356 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
357 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
359 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
360 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
361 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
362 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
364 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
366 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
367 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
369 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
370 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
371 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
372 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
373 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
376 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
377 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
378 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
379 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
380 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
381 successful and #f if it wasn't.
383 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
384 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
385 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
386 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
387 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
389 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
390 objects are usually permanent.
392 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
393 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
395 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
397 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
398 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
401 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
405 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
410 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
412 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
413 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
414 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
415 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
417 ** New function `make-object-property'
419 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
420 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
424 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
425 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
429 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
430 source properties eventually.
432 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
434 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
435 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
436 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
438 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
439 will be removed in the next release.
441 ** New define-module option: pure
443 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
448 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
451 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
453 Export names NAME1 ...
455 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
456 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
462 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
465 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
470 ** New function: object->string OBJ
472 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
474 ** New function: port? X
476 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
477 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
479 ** New function: file-port?
481 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
483 ** New function: port-for-each proc
485 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
486 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
487 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
488 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
489 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
491 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
493 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
494 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
495 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
496 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
497 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
500 ** New function: close-fdes fd
502 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
503 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
504 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
505 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
508 ** New function: crypt password salt
510 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
513 ** New function: chroot path
515 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
517 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
519 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
522 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
524 Get or set the priority of the running process.
526 ** New function: getpass prompt
528 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
531 ** New function: flock file operation
533 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
535 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
537 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
540 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
542 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
543 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
544 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
545 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
546 of the temporary file.
548 ** New function: open-input-string string
550 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
551 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
552 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
554 ** New function: open-output-string
556 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
557 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
559 ** New function: get-output-string
561 Return the contents of an output string port.
563 ** New function: identity
567 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
568 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
570 ** New function: inet-pton family address
572 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
573 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
574 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
577 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
578 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
580 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
582 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
583 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
584 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
587 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
588 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
589 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
593 Use `identity' instead.
599 ** Deprecated: return-it
603 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
605 Use `string-length' instead.
609 Use `logior' instead.
611 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
613 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
614 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
615 port-for-each is more flexible.
617 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
618 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
619 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
621 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
623 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
625 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
627 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
629 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
631 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
632 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
634 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
635 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
637 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
638 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
640 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
642 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
643 Removed function: builtin-bindings
645 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
646 Use module system operations for all variables.
648 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
650 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
653 * Changes to the C interface
655 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
657 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
658 with "_t". What a concept.
660 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
662 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
664 ** Deprecated feature have been removed.
668 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
669 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
671 *** C Functions removed
673 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
674 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
675 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
676 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
677 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
678 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
679 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
681 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
683 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
685 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
686 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
688 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
690 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
693 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
695 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
697 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
699 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
700 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
701 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
703 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
705 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
707 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
708 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
709 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
712 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
714 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
716 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
717 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
719 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
721 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
722 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
723 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
724 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
726 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
727 scm_primitive_property_ref
728 scm_primitive_property_set_x
729 scm_primitive_property_del_x
731 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
732 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
734 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
736 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
737 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
738 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
739 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
741 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
743 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
744 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
745 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
746 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
747 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
748 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
749 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
751 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
752 scm_remember_upto_here
754 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
756 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
758 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
759 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
761 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
763 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
765 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
767 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
769 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
771 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
772 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
773 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
774 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
775 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
776 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
778 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
780 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
782 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
783 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
784 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
786 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
788 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
789 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
790 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
792 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
794 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
795 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
798 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
801 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
802 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
805 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
807 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
809 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
811 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
813 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
815 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
817 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
818 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
819 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
820 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
821 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
822 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
823 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
824 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
825 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
826 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
827 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
828 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
829 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
830 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
831 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
833 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
834 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
835 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
836 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
837 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
838 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
839 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
840 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
841 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
842 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
843 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
844 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
845 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
846 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
847 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
848 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
849 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
850 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
851 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
852 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
853 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
854 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
855 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
856 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
857 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
858 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
859 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
860 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
861 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
863 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
865 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
867 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
868 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
870 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
872 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
874 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
876 Use scm_string_hash instead.
878 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
880 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
882 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
884 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
886 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
889 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
890 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
892 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
894 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
896 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
898 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
900 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
902 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
904 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
906 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
909 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
911 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
913 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
915 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
916 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
918 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
919 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
921 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
923 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
924 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
925 scm_module_define, scm_define.
927 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
929 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
931 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
932 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
934 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
935 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
936 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
937 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
939 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
940 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
941 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
943 Use the new ones from above instead.
945 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
947 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
948 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
949 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
951 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
952 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
954 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
955 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
958 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
959 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
961 Use the new functions instead.
963 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
966 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
968 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
970 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
973 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
975 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
978 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
980 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
983 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
984 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
985 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
987 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
989 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
990 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
992 With the exception of the misterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
993 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
994 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
995 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
998 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
999 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
1000 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
1003 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
1004 types and Scheme numbers.
1006 ** New number validation macros:
1007 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
1011 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
1013 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
1014 scm_unprotect_object.
1016 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
1018 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
1020 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
1023 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
1025 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
1029 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
1031 * Changes to the distribution
1033 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
1035 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
1036 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
1037 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
1038 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
1039 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
1040 obtain these programs.
1041 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
1042 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
1044 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
1045 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
1046 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
1047 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
1048 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
1050 However, this approach means that minor differences between
1051 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
1052 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
1053 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
1057 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
1060 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
1061 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
1062 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
1063 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
1065 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
1067 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
1069 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
1070 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
1072 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
1073 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
1075 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
1076 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
1078 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
1079 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
1080 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
1081 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
1083 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
1085 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
1089 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
1090 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
1092 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
1094 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
1095 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
1097 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
1098 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
1099 number of objects of that kind.
1101 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
1103 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
1104 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
1105 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
1106 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
1107 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
1109 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
1111 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
1113 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
1115 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
1118 ** New module (ice-9 time)
1120 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
1122 ** New module (ice-9 history)
1124 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
1126 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1128 ** New command line option --debug
1130 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
1132 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
1134 ** New help facility
1136 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
1137 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
1138 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
1139 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
1140 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
1141 (help) gives this text
1143 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
1144 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
1146 Examples: (help help)
1148 (help "output-string")
1150 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
1152 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
1154 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
1155 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
1158 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
1159 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
1160 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
1163 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
1164 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
1165 use absolute filenames when possible.
1167 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
1168 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
1169 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
1172 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
1174 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
1175 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
1176 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
1177 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
1179 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
1181 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
1183 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
1184 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
1185 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
1187 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
1188 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
1189 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
1191 (read-enable 'positions)
1192 (debug-enable 'debug)
1194 ** Backtraces in scripts
1196 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
1200 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
1202 at the top of the script.
1204 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
1205 The second enables backtraces.)
1207 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
1209 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
1210 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
1211 substantially faster than before.
1213 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
1214 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
1216 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
1217 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
1219 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
1221 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
1222 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
1223 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
1225 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
1226 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
1227 when this hook is run in the future.
1229 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
1230 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
1232 ** Improvements to garbage collector
1234 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
1235 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
1238 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
1239 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
1240 more and more memory for certain programs.)
1242 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
1243 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
1245 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
1246 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
1248 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
1249 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
1250 in order not to need further allocation.)
1252 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
1255 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
1256 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
1257 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
1258 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
1260 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
1262 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
1265 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
1267 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
1270 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
1271 GC in percent of total heap size
1274 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
1275 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
1277 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
1279 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
1280 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
1282 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
1284 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
1285 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
1287 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
1289 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
1290 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
1294 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
1295 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
1297 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
1299 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1301 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
1303 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
1305 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
1307 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
1308 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
1310 (simple-format port message . args)
1311 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
1312 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
1313 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
1314 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
1315 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
1316 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
1317 Does not add a trailing newline."
1319 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
1321 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
1322 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
1324 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
1325 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
1327 ** Deprecated: list*
1329 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
1331 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
1333 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
1334 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
1336 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
1337 is returned as result.
1339 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
1341 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
1343 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
1345 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
1346 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
1349 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
1351 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
1353 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
1354 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
1356 * Changes to the gh_ interface
1358 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
1360 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
1362 * Changes to the scm_ interface
1364 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
1366 Thanks to Greg Badros!
1368 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
1370 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
1371 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
1372 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
1374 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
1377 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
1379 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
1380 the readability of argument checking.
1382 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
1384 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
1386 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
1388 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
1389 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
1390 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
1391 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
1392 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
1393 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
1394 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
1396 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
1398 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
1400 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
1401 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
1403 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
1405 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
1406 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
1409 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
1411 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
1412 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
1413 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
1415 Further, it is recommended not to rely on implementation details for guile's
1416 current implementation of bignums. It is planned to replace this
1417 implementation with gmp in the future.
1419 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
1420 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
1421 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
1423 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
1424 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
1425 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
1426 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
1427 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
1428 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
1429 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
1431 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
1432 scm_end_input (object);
1433 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
1434 ptob->flush (object);
1436 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
1437 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
1440 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
1442 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
1444 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
1445 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
1446 removed in a future version.
1448 ** The format of error message strings has changed
1450 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
1451 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
1452 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
1453 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
1455 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
1456 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
1458 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
1461 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
1463 in your configure.in.
1465 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
1470 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
1476 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
1478 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
1482 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
1483 (define make-message string-append)
1485 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
1487 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
1491 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
1496 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
1500 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
1502 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
1503 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
1505 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
1507 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
1508 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
1509 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
1510 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
1511 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
1512 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
1514 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
1515 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
1516 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
1518 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
1519 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
1520 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
1523 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
1524 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
1525 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
1526 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
1527 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
1529 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
1530 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
1531 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
1532 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
1533 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
1534 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
1535 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
1537 Destructors are not yet implemented.
1539 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
1540 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
1541 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
1543 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
1544 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
1545 KEY in the calling thread.
1547 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
1548 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
1549 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
1550 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
1551 associated with the key.
1553 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
1555 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
1556 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
1558 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
1560 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
1561 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
1562 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
1564 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
1566 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
1567 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
1569 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
1571 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
1573 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
1574 returned is undefined.
1576 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
1577 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
1578 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
1580 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
1581 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
1582 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
1584 ** New C level GC hooks
1586 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
1588 scm_before_gc_c_hook
1591 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
1592 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
1593 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
1595 scm_before_mark_c_hook
1596 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
1597 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
1599 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
1600 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
1603 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
1605 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
1606 allocation parameters
1608 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
1609 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
1610 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
1614 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
1615 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
1616 scm_default_max_segment_size
1618 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
1620 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
1621 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
1623 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
1625 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
1626 object and count on the object being protected until
1627 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
1629 The functions also have better time complexity.
1631 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
1632 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
1633 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
1634 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
1635 are no longer needed.
1637 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
1639 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
1640 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
1641 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
1642 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
1644 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
1646 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
1648 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
1650 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
1651 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
1652 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
1653 until this issue has been settled.
1655 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
1657 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
1659 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
1662 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
1664 * Changes to system call interfaces:
1666 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
1667 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
1668 descriptors were checked.
1670 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
1671 atomically written to a pipe.
1673 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
1674 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
1675 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
1676 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
1677 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
1678 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
1679 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
1682 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
1683 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
1684 is changed without calling tzset.
1686 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
1688 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
1689 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
1690 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
1692 (define write-network-long
1693 (lambda (value port)
1694 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
1695 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
1696 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
1698 (define read-network-long
1700 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
1701 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
1702 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
1704 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
1705 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
1707 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
1708 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
1709 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
1710 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
1712 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
1713 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
1714 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
1715 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
1719 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
1721 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1725 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
1726 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
1727 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
1733 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
1734 for a description of available commands.
1736 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
1737 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
1738 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
1740 (debug-enable 'backwards)
1742 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
1743 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
1745 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
1747 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
1749 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
1750 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
1751 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
1752 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
1753 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
1754 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
1757 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
1759 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
1760 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
1761 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
1762 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
1764 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
1765 the file and should not be affected by this change.
1767 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
1769 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1771 ** Readline support has changed again.
1773 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
1774 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
1775 to activate readline is now
1777 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
1780 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
1782 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
1783 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
1784 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
1787 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
1788 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
1789 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
1792 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
1793 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
1794 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
1795 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
1796 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
1797 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
1799 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
1800 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
1802 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
1804 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
1805 object it receives is the same string passed to
1806 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
1807 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
1808 string, not the suffix.
1810 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
1811 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
1812 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
1814 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
1816 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
1817 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
1818 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
1819 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
1822 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
1824 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
1826 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
1827 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
1828 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
1829 appear from left to right.
1831 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
1834 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
1836 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
1837 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
1839 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
1843 *** New function: hook? OBJ
1845 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
1847 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
1849 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
1850 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
1851 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
1853 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
1855 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
1857 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
1859 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
1862 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
1864 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
1865 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
1866 mentioning it here anyway.
1868 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
1870 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
1871 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
1872 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
1873 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
1876 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
1878 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
1880 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
1882 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
1883 otherwise return #f.
1885 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
1887 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
1888 returned by `opendir'.
1890 ** New function: using-readline?
1892 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
1894 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
1896 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
1897 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
1899 * Changes to the scm_ interface
1901 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
1903 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
1904 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
1905 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
1907 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
1909 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
1910 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
1912 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
1914 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
1915 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
1916 documentation slots are not yet used.
1918 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
1920 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
1921 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
1922 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
1927 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
1928 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
1929 (string-append x y))
1931 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
1932 can also be used for concatenating strings.
1934 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
1935 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
1936 be made in a clean way.]
1938 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
1940 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
1942 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
1944 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
1945 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
1947 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
1949 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
1951 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
1953 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
1955 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
1956 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
1957 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
1958 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
1961 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
1963 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
1965 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
1967 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
1969 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
1970 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
1972 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
1974 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
1976 Evaluates the body of a special form.
1978 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
1980 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
1981 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
1982 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
1983 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
1984 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
1985 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
1987 This should not make any difference for most users.
1989 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
1991 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
1992 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
1994 *** New functions for applying generic functions
1996 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
1997 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
1998 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
1999 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
2000 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
2002 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
2004 It is now replaced by:
2006 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
2008 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
2009 binds a variable named NAME to it.
2011 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
2013 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
2014 This might change when we get the new module system.
2016 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
2020 Changes since Guile 1.3:
2022 * Changes to mailing lists
2024 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
2026 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
2029 * Changes to the distribution
2031 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
2033 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
2034 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
2035 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
2036 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
2037 you explicitly specify it.
2039 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
2040 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
2041 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
2042 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
2043 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
2046 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
2047 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
2048 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
2049 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
2051 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
2052 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
2053 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
2056 You can activate the readline support by issuing
2058 (use-modules (readline-activator))
2061 from your ".guile" file, for example.
2063 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2065 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
2066 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
2067 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
2068 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
2070 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
2071 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
2074 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2076 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
2077 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
2078 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
2079 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
2080 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
2081 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
2082 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
2083 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
2095 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
2096 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
2097 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
2098 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
2099 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
2104 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
2105 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
2113 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
2118 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
2119 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
2122 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
2123 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
2124 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
2125 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
2127 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
2129 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
2131 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
2132 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
2134 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
2136 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
2138 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
2139 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
2141 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
2144 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
2146 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
2148 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
2150 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
2152 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
2154 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
2156 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
2157 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
2158 when the hook was created.
2160 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
2161 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
2162 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
2163 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
2164 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
2165 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
2166 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
2167 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
2168 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
2170 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
2171 the dlopen family of functions.
2173 ** New function `provided?'
2175 - Function: provided? FEATURE
2176 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
2177 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
2178 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
2180 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
2182 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
2183 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
2184 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
2185 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
2188 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
2189 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
2190 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
2191 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
2193 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
2194 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
2195 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
2198 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
2199 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
2200 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
2201 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
2202 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
2203 but with the flag set.
2205 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
2207 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
2208 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
2210 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
2211 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
2212 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
2213 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
2214 available Scheme format implementations.
2216 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
2217 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
2218 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
2219 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
2220 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
2221 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
2222 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
2223 output is to the current error port if available by the
2224 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
2227 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
2228 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
2229 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
2230 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
2231 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
2232 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
2233 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
2234 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
2236 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
2237 be executed at a time.
2240 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
2242 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
2243 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
2244 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
2246 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
2247 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
2248 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
2249 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
2250 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
2251 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
2252 general form of a directive is:
2254 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
2256 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
2258 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
2260 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
2261 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
2262 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
2265 Any (print as `display' does).
2269 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
2273 S-expression (print as `write' does).
2277 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
2283 print number sign always.
2286 print comma separated.
2288 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
2294 print number sign always.
2297 print comma separated.
2299 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
2305 print number sign always.
2308 print comma separated.
2310 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
2316 print number sign always.
2319 print comma separated.
2321 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
2326 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
2330 print a number as a Roman numeral.
2333 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
2336 print a number as an ordinal English number.
2339 print a number as a cardinal English number.
2344 prints `y' and `ies'.
2347 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
2350 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
2355 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
2359 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
2362 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
2363 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
2365 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2368 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
2369 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
2371 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2374 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
2376 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
2378 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2381 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
2383 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
2385 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2388 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
2391 The sign appears before the padding.
2399 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
2401 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
2406 print N page separators.
2416 newline is ignored, white space left.
2419 newline is left, white space ignored.
2424 relative tabulation.
2430 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
2432 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
2435 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
2437 converts by `string-capitalize'.
2440 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
2443 converts by `string-upcase'.
2446 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
2448 jumps N arguments forward.
2451 jumps 1 argument backward.
2454 jumps N arguments backward.
2457 jumps to the 0th argument.
2460 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
2462 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
2463 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
2465 take argument from N.
2468 true test conditional.
2471 if-else-then conditional.
2477 default clause follows.
2480 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
2482 at most N iterations.
2485 args from next arg (a list of lists).
2488 args from the rest of arguments.
2491 args from the rest args (lists).
2502 aborts if N <= M <= K
2504 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
2507 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
2510 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
2516 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
2518 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
2520 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
2521 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
2522 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
2523 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
2524 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
2525 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
2529 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
2533 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
2539 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
2542 Print a `#\space' character
2544 print N `#\space' characters.
2547 Print a `#\tab' character
2549 print N `#\tab' characters.
2552 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
2553 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
2554 must be a positive decimal number.
2557 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
2558 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
2559 be processed by `read'.
2562 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
2563 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
2564 be processed by `read'.
2567 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
2570 prints format version.
2573 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
2574 and format it accordingly.
2576 *** Configuration Variables
2578 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
2579 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
2580 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
2581 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
2584 format:symbol-case-conv
2585 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
2586 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
2587 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
2588 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
2589 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
2591 format:iobj-case-conv
2592 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
2593 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
2596 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
2599 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
2605 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
2606 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
2607 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
2608 `format' padding style.
2611 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
2612 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
2613 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
2614 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
2618 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
2619 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
2620 directive parameters or modifiers)).
2623 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
2624 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
2625 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
2626 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
2627 parameters or modifiers)).
2630 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
2632 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
2634 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
2635 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
2637 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
2638 string-downcase! functions.
2640 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
2641 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
2643 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
2646 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
2649 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
2650 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
2652 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
2654 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
2655 the symbol had be read by `read'.
2657 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
2658 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
2659 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
2660 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
2661 would if STRING were input.
2663 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
2665 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
2666 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
2667 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
2668 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
2671 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
2673 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
2674 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
2677 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
2679 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
2680 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
2682 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
2683 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
2685 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
2686 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
2687 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
2688 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
2690 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
2691 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
2693 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
2694 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
2695 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
2697 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
2698 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
2700 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
2701 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
2702 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
2703 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
2704 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
2706 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
2707 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
2708 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
2709 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
2710 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
2711 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
2713 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
2714 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
2715 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
2718 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
2719 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
2720 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
2721 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
2722 the following grammar:
2723 ((apples (single-char #\a))
2724 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
2725 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
2726 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
2727 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
2728 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
2729 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
2730 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
2731 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
2732 last option in its combination)
2734 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
2735 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
2736 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
2737 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
2739 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
2740 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
2741 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
2743 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
2744 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
2745 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
2747 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
2748 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
2749 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
2750 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
2751 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
2752 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
2753 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
2754 ordinary argument strings.
2756 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
2757 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
2758 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
2759 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
2761 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
2762 as a list, associated with the empty list.
2764 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
2765 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
2766 - a required option is omitted
2767 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
2768 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
2769 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
2770 - an option predicate fails
2775 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
2778 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
2779 (verbose (required? #f)
2782 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
2783 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
2784 (predicate ,string?))))
2786 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
2787 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
2789 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
2790 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
2791 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
2792 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
2795 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
2797 It will be removed in a few releases.
2799 ** New syntax: lambda*
2800 ** New syntax: define*
2801 ** New syntax: define*-public
2802 ** New syntax: defmacro*
2803 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
2804 Guile now supports optional arguments.
2806 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
2807 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
2808 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
2809 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
2810 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
2812 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
2813 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
2814 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
2816 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
2818 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
2819 and examples for `lambda*':
2822 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
2824 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
2825 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
2826 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
2827 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
2828 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
2829 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
2830 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
2831 can be checked with the bound? macro.
2833 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
2835 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
2836 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
2837 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
2838 are given as keywords are bound to values.
2840 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
2841 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
2842 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
2843 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
2844 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
2845 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
2846 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
2847 and until the procedure is called.
2849 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
2851 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
2852 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
2853 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
2854 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
2855 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
2856 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
2857 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
2858 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
2859 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
2860 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
2862 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
2863 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
2864 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
2865 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
2868 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
2870 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
2871 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
2872 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
2873 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
2875 ** New syntax: and-let*
2876 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
2878 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
2879 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
2880 (<variable> <expression>)
2883 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
2884 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
2885 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
2888 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
2889 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
2890 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
2891 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
2892 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
2893 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
2894 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
2896 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
2897 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
2898 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
2899 shadow earlier bindings.
2901 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
2903 ** New sorting functions
2905 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
2906 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
2907 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
2908 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
2910 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
2911 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
2914 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
2915 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
2916 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
2918 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
2919 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
2920 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
2921 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
2923 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
2924 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
2925 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
2926 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
2927 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
2930 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
2931 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
2932 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
2933 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
2934 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
2935 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
2937 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
2938 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
2939 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
2941 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
2942 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
2943 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
2946 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
2947 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
2948 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
2950 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
2951 Added for compatibility with scsh.
2953 ** New built-in random number support
2955 *** New function: random N [STATE]
2956 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
2957 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
2958 returned have a uniform distribution.
2960 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
2961 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
2962 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
2963 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
2964 effect of the `random' operation.
2966 *** New variable: *random-state*
2967 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
2968 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
2969 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
2970 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
2971 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
2974 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
2975 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
2976 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
2977 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
2978 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
2980 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
2981 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
2982 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
2983 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
2984 initialized using SEED.
2986 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
2987 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
2988 range between 0 and 1.
2990 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
2991 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
2992 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
2993 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
2994 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
2995 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
2996 or a uniform vector of doubles.
2998 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
2999 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
3000 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
3001 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
3002 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
3003 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
3005 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
3006 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
3007 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
3008 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
3010 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
3011 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
3012 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
3013 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
3015 *** New function: random:exp STATE
3016 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
3017 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
3019 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
3021 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
3024 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
3025 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
3028 ** New function: make-guardian
3029 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
3030 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
3031 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
3032 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
3033 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
3035 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
3036 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
3037 one object if at all.
3039 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
3040 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
3041 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
3043 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
3044 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
3045 read again in last-in first-out order.
3047 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
3048 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
3050 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
3052 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
3053 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
3054 file position is used.
3056 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
3057 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
3058 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
3060 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
3061 redefined using seek.
3063 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
3064 size is not supplied.
3066 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
3067 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
3069 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
3070 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
3072 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
3074 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
3075 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
3076 and returns the contents as a single string.
3078 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
3079 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
3080 lists in serial order.
3082 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
3083 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
3084 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
3086 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
3087 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
3088 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
3089 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
3091 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
3092 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
3093 and #f if an error occured.
3095 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
3097 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
3098 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
3099 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
3100 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
3102 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
3104 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
3107 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
3109 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
3112 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3116 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
3117 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
3119 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
3120 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
3124 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3126 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
3128 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3129 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3131 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3133 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
3134 might change when we get the new module system.
3136 ** The smob interface
3138 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
3139 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
3141 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
3143 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
3147 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
3148 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
3149 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
3150 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
3151 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
3152 will be freed by the default free function.
3154 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
3155 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
3156 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3157 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3159 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
3160 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
3161 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3162 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3164 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
3166 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
3167 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
3171 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
3172 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3173 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3175 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
3176 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
3177 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3178 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3180 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
3181 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
3182 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
3184 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
3185 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
3186 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
3187 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
3189 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
3190 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
3191 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
3193 *** scm_newptob has been removed
3197 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
3199 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
3200 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
3201 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
3203 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
3204 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
3205 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
3207 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
3208 a string port's buffer.
3210 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
3211 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
3212 function pointers which together define the current random number
3213 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
3214 number library functions.
3216 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
3219 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
3220 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
3223 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
3224 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
3226 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
3227 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
3229 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
3230 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
3233 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
3234 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
3235 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
3236 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
3238 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
3239 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
3240 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
3241 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
3242 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
3243 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
3244 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
3246 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
3247 by libguile and the application.
3249 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
3250 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
3251 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
3252 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
3254 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
3255 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
3257 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
3258 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
3259 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
3261 ** Random number library functions
3262 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
3263 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
3264 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
3266 The default random state is stored in:
3268 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
3269 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
3270 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
3275 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
3277 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
3278 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
3279 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
3280 isn't a random state.
3282 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
3283 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
3285 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
3286 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
3287 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
3288 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
3290 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3291 Return 32 random bits.
3293 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3294 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
3296 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3297 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
3299 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3300 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
3302 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
3303 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
3305 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
3306 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
3307 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
3311 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
3313 * Changes to the distribution
3315 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
3316 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
3317 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
3320 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
3321 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
3322 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
3324 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
3325 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
3326 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
3327 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
3330 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
3331 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
3332 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
3334 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3336 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
3338 *** Function: batch-mode?
3340 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
3343 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
3345 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
3346 case has not been implemented.
3348 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
3349 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
3350 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
3353 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
3354 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
3356 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
3358 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
3360 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
3362 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
3363 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
3366 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
3367 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
3368 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
3369 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
3372 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
3374 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
3375 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
3376 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
3377 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
3378 find those libraries.
3380 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
3381 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
3384 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
3386 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
3387 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
3388 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
3389 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
3391 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
3392 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
3393 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
3397 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
3399 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
3400 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
3401 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
3404 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
3405 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
3406 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
3407 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
3409 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
3410 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
3413 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
3414 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
3415 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
3416 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
3417 compiler where to find the libraries.
3419 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
3420 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
3421 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
3423 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
3424 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
3425 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
3426 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
3427 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
3431 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3433 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
3434 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
3435 internationalization support.
3437 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
3438 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
3439 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
3440 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
3441 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
3443 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
3444 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
3445 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
3446 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
3447 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
3449 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
3450 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
3451 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
3452 any GNU mirror site.
3454 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
3456 ** New function: add-history STRING
3457 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
3458 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
3459 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
3461 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
3463 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
3464 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
3465 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
3468 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
3469 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
3470 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
3472 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
3474 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
3477 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
3478 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
3481 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
3482 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
3483 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
3484 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
3485 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
3486 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
3488 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
3489 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
3490 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
3491 of the form mentioned above.
3493 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
3494 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
3495 returned in the special `rest' list.
3497 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
3498 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
3500 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
3502 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
3504 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
3506 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
3507 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
3508 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
3509 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
3510 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
3511 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
3512 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
3513 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
3516 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
3518 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
3520 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
3521 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
3524 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
3525 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
3526 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
3530 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
3531 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
3532 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
3533 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
3534 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
3535 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
3536 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
3537 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
3540 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
3542 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
3543 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
3544 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
3546 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
3548 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
3549 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
3551 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
3552 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
3553 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
3555 Why do we have this function?
3556 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
3557 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
3558 primitive, and display it differently, and
3559 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
3560 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
3563 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
3564 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
3567 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
3568 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
3569 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
3570 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
3572 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
3573 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
3576 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
3577 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
3579 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
3581 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
3582 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
3583 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
3584 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
3585 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
3586 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
3587 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
3590 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
3592 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
3593 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
3595 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
3596 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
3597 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
3598 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
3599 properly continue the print chain.
3601 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
3602 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
3603 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
3604 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
3605 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
3606 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
3607 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
3608 print-state, it is simply ignored.
3610 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
3611 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
3612 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
3613 safest to not check for these pairs.
3615 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
3616 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
3617 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
3618 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
3620 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
3622 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
3623 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
3625 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
3627 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
3629 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
3630 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
3631 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
3633 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
3634 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
3635 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
3637 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
3638 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
3639 the following functions and macros:
3641 Function: make-fluid
3643 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
3644 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
3645 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
3646 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
3647 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
3649 Function: fluid? OBJ
3651 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
3653 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
3654 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
3656 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
3657 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
3659 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
3661 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
3662 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
3663 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
3664 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
3665 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
3666 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
3667 modified by `with-fluids*'.
3669 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
3671 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
3672 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
3673 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
3674 should evaluate to a fluid.
3676 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
3678 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
3679 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
3680 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
3681 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
3682 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
3684 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
3687 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
3689 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
3691 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
3693 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
3696 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
3697 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
3698 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
3699 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
3700 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
3703 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
3704 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
3705 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
3707 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
3708 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
3709 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
3711 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
3712 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
3713 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
3714 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
3716 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
3717 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
3718 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
3719 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
3721 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
3722 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
3723 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
3724 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
3726 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
3727 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
3728 their revealed counts set to zero.
3730 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3731 Returns an integer file descriptor.
3733 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3734 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
3736 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3737 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
3739 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3740 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
3741 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
3743 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
3744 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
3745 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
3747 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
3748 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
3749 default environment inherited by child processes.
3751 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
3752 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
3753 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
3755 The return value is unspecified.
3757 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
3758 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
3759 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
3760 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
3761 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
3763 The return value is unspecified.
3765 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
3766 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
3774 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
3775 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
3778 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
3781 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
3782 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
3783 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
3785 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
3786 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
3787 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
3788 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
3791 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
3792 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
3794 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
3795 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
3796 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
3797 the `environ' procedure.
3799 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
3800 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
3803 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
3804 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
3806 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
3807 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
3808 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
3809 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
3811 *** procedure: times
3812 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
3813 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
3814 return a selected component:
3817 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
3821 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
3824 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
3828 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
3829 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
3833 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
3834 terminated child processes.
3836 ** Removed: list-length
3837 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
3838 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
3840 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
3842 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
3844 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
3846 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
3847 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
3848 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
3849 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
3851 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
3852 extra complexity it introduces.
3854 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
3855 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
3857 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
3858 variable to any non-empty value.
3860 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
3861 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
3863 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3865 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
3866 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
3868 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
3870 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
3871 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
3873 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
3875 ** vector handling routines
3877 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
3878 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
3879 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
3880 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
3881 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
3883 ** pair and list routines
3885 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
3888 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
3890 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
3893 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3895 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
3897 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
3898 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
3899 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
3900 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
3901 site-specific initialization code.
3903 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
3904 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
3905 initialization processes.
3907 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
3908 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
3909 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
3910 initialized properly.
3912 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
3913 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
3914 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
3916 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
3917 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
3918 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
3919 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
3920 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
3922 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
3924 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
3925 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
3926 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
3927 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
3928 objects the smob refers to get marked.
3930 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
3931 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
3932 which look like this:
3935 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
3937 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
3938 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
3941 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
3942 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
3945 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
3947 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
3948 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
3949 you will need to change your functions slightly.
3951 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
3952 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
3953 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
3954 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
3955 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
3957 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
3958 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
3960 int (*free) (SCM port);
3961 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
3962 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
3963 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
3967 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
3968 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
3969 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
3971 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
3974 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
3975 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
3976 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
3978 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
3979 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
3980 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
3983 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
3987 struct timeval *timeout);
3989 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
3990 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
3991 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
3992 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
3993 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
3994 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
3996 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
3997 scm_catch_body_t body,
3999 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
4002 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
4003 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
4004 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
4005 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
4006 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
4007 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
4009 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
4011 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
4014 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
4015 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
4016 spawning threads from application C code.
4018 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
4019 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
4020 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
4021 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
4022 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
4023 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
4025 ** Removed functions:
4027 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
4028 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
4030 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
4032 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
4033 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
4035 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
4037 ** mbstrings are now removed
4039 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
4040 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
4042 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
4044 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
4045 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
4046 their new names and arguments:
4048 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
4049 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
4050 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
4051 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
4054 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
4056 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
4058 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
4061 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
4063 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
4064 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
4065 pass a #f arg to catch.
4067 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
4069 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
4070 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
4073 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
4074 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
4075 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
4076 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
4077 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
4078 reclaim its storage.
4080 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
4081 worrying that some other function you call will call
4082 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
4083 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
4084 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
4085 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
4088 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
4090 * Changes to the distribution
4092 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
4093 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
4096 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
4097 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
4099 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4100 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4102 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
4104 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
4105 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
4106 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
4108 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4110 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
4111 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
4112 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
4113 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
4114 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
4115 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
4117 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
4118 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
4119 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
4122 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
4123 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
4124 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
4125 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
4127 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
4128 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
4129 libraries to your link command:
4131 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
4132 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
4133 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
4134 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
4136 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
4137 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
4138 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
4140 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4142 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
4143 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
4146 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
4148 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
4149 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
4150 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
4151 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
4152 searched is system dependent.
4154 (dynamic-object? VAL)
4156 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
4158 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
4160 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
4161 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
4163 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
4165 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
4166 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
4167 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
4168 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
4169 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
4172 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
4174 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
4175 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
4176 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
4177 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
4178 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
4180 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
4182 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
4183 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
4185 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
4187 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
4188 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
4189 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
4192 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
4194 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
4195 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
4196 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
4197 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
4199 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
4200 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
4202 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
4204 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
4205 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
4207 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
4209 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
4210 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
4218 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
4220 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
4221 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
4222 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
4223 a more informative way.
4225 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
4226 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
4227 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
4228 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
4229 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
4230 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
4232 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
4233 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
4236 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
4237 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
4238 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
4241 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
4242 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
4243 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
4244 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
4245 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
4246 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
4248 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
4249 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
4250 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
4251 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
4254 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
4255 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
4256 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
4257 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
4258 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
4259 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
4261 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
4262 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
4263 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
4264 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
4265 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
4267 *** regexp functions
4269 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
4270 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
4271 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
4273 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
4274 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
4275 with SCSH regular expressions.
4277 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
4278 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
4279 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
4280 position of STR at which to begin matching.
4282 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
4283 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
4284 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
4285 `string-match' returns `#f'.
4287 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
4288 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
4289 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
4290 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
4291 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
4292 match strings against the compiled regexp.
4294 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
4295 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
4296 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
4297 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
4298 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
4300 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
4302 **** Constant: regexp/extended
4303 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
4304 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
4305 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
4307 **** Constant: regexp/icase
4308 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
4309 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
4311 **** Constant: regexp/newline
4312 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
4314 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
4317 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
4318 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
4319 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
4321 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
4322 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
4323 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
4325 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
4326 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
4327 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
4328 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
4329 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
4332 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
4334 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
4335 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
4336 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
4337 used when different portions of a string are passed to
4338 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
4339 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
4341 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
4342 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
4343 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
4345 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
4346 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
4349 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
4350 and replace them with the contents of another string.
4352 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
4353 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
4354 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
4355 may be one of the following arguments:
4357 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
4359 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
4361 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
4362 the regexp match is written.
4364 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
4365 following the regexp match is written.
4367 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
4368 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
4371 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
4372 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
4373 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
4374 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
4375 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
4376 which should be matched against this regular expression.
4378 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
4381 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
4382 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
4383 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
4384 written out to PORT.
4386 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
4387 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
4388 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
4389 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
4390 will return after processing a single match.
4392 *** Match Structures
4394 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
4395 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
4396 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
4397 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
4398 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
4399 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
4402 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
4403 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
4404 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
4405 information about the original target string that was matched against a
4406 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
4408 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
4409 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
4410 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
4412 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
4413 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
4414 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
4415 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
4416 number N did not match, return `#f'.
4418 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
4419 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
4421 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
4422 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
4424 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
4425 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
4427 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
4428 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
4430 **** Function: match:count MATCH
4431 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
4432 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
4433 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
4435 **** Function: match:string MATCH
4436 Return the original TARGET string.
4438 *** Backslash Escapes
4440 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
4441 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
4442 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
4443 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
4444 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
4445 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
4447 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
4448 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
4449 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
4450 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
4451 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
4452 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
4453 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
4454 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
4456 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
4457 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
4458 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
4459 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
4460 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
4461 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
4462 each match a single backslash in the target string.
4464 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
4465 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
4466 return the resulting string.
4468 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
4469 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
4470 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
4471 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
4472 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
4473 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
4474 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
4475 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
4476 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
4477 translated to the single character `*'.
4479 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
4480 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
4481 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
4482 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
4483 consecutive backslashes:
4485 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
4487 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
4488 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
4489 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
4491 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
4492 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
4493 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
4494 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
4495 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
4496 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
4498 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
4500 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
4501 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
4502 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
4503 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
4504 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
4505 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
4506 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
4507 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
4508 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
4509 cumbersome escape syntax.
4511 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4513 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4515 * Changes to system call interfaces:
4517 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
4520 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
4522 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
4524 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
4527 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
4528 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
4529 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
4530 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
4531 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
4533 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
4534 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
4535 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
4536 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
4537 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
4538 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
4539 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
4542 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
4543 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
4544 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
4547 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
4548 `force-output' on every port open for output.
4550 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
4551 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
4552 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
4553 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
4554 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
4555 installed, you can say:
4557 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
4560 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4562 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
4563 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
4564 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
4565 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
4566 new dynamic roots and threads.
4569 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
4571 * Changes to the distribution.
4573 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
4575 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
4576 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
4577 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
4578 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
4579 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
4580 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
4581 programming language. These are packaged together because the
4582 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
4584 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
4587 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
4588 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
4593 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4595 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
4596 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
4598 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
4599 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
4600 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
4601 the (command-line) function.
4602 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
4603 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
4604 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
4606 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
4607 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
4608 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
4609 command line arguments
4610 -ds do -s script at this point
4611 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
4612 -h, --help display this help and exit
4613 -v, --version display version information and exit
4614 \ read arguments from following script lines
4616 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
4617 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
4619 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
4622 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
4626 (main (command-line))
4628 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
4630 ekko a speckled gecko
4632 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
4633 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
4634 following list of command-line arguments:
4636 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
4638 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
4639 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
4640 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
4641 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
4642 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
4644 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
4646 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
4648 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
4649 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
4652 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
4653 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
4654 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
4655 SCSH) for circumventing them.
4657 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
4658 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
4659 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
4660 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
4662 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
4666 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
4670 If the user invokes this script as follows:
4672 ekko a speckled gecko
4674 Unix expands this into
4676 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
4678 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
4679 read from the second line of the script, producing:
4681 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
4683 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
4684 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
4686 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
4687 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
4688 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
4689 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
4690 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
4691 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
4692 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
4693 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
4694 it only terminates the argument list.)
4695 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
4696 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
4697 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
4698 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
4699 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
4700 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
4701 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
4702 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
4704 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4706 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
4707 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
4708 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
4709 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
4710 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
4712 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
4713 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
4714 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
4716 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
4718 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
4719 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
4720 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
4721 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
4724 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
4725 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
4726 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
4728 * Changes to Scheme functions
4730 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
4731 and disabled by default.
4733 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
4734 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
4735 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
4736 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
4738 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
4740 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
4742 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
4743 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
4745 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
4746 (read-set! keywords #f)
4748 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
4749 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
4750 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
4753 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
4754 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
4755 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
4758 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
4759 support for Scheme functions.
4761 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
4762 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
4763 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
4764 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
4767 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
4768 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
4769 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
4772 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
4773 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
4774 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
4777 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
4778 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
4779 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
4780 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
4781 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
4782 display the result as a prompt.
4783 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
4785 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
4786 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
4787 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
4790 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
4791 procedure of zero arguments.
4793 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
4794 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
4795 argument is bound in the current module.
4797 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
4798 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
4799 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
4800 public bindings into the current module.
4802 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
4803 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
4805 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
4806 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
4808 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
4809 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
4811 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
4812 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
4814 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
4815 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
4817 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
4818 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
4819 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
4820 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
4821 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
4823 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
4824 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
4825 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
4826 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
4828 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
4831 ** Changes to I/O functions
4833 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
4834 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
4835 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
4837 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
4838 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
4839 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
4841 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
4842 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
4844 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
4845 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
4846 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
4847 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
4849 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
4851 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
4852 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
4854 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
4855 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
4856 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
4857 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
4858 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
4861 'trim omit delimiter from result
4862 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
4863 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
4864 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
4866 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
4868 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
4869 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
4871 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
4872 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
4873 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
4874 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
4875 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
4877 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
4878 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
4879 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
4881 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
4882 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
4883 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
4884 above, and defaults to 'peek.
4886 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
4887 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
4889 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
4890 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
4892 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
4894 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
4895 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
4896 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
4897 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
4898 a delimiting character.
4899 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
4901 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
4902 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
4903 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
4904 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
4905 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
4906 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
4908 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
4909 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
4911 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
4912 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
4913 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
4915 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
4916 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
4917 the array to read and write.
4919 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
4920 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
4923 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
4925 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
4928 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
4929 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
4930 Values for COMMAND are:
4932 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
4933 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
4934 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
4935 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
4936 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
4937 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
4938 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
4939 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
4941 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
4943 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
4944 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
4945 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
4946 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
4947 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
4948 corresponding return set will be the same.
4950 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
4953 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
4954 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
4955 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
4956 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
4957 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
4958 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
4959 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
4960 special file being created.
4962 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
4963 clashing with various SCSH forks.
4965 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
4966 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
4967 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
4968 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
4969 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
4970 and originating address.
4972 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
4973 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
4974 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
4976 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
4979 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
4980 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
4983 (status:exit-val STATUS)
4984 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
4985 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
4986 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
4987 this function returns #f.
4989 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
4990 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
4991 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
4994 (status:term-sig STATUS)
4995 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
4996 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
4999 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
5000 a valid STATUS value.
5002 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
5004 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
5005 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
5007 Component Accessor Setter
5008 ========================= ============ ============
5009 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
5010 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
5011 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
5012 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
5013 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
5014 year tm:year set-tm:year
5015 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
5016 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
5017 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
5018 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
5019 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
5021 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
5022 describing the host system:
5025 ============================================== ================
5026 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
5027 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
5028 release level of the operating system utsname:release
5029 version level of the operating system utsname:version
5030 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
5032 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
5033 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
5034 system's user database:
5037 ====================== =================
5038 user name passwd:name
5039 user password passwd:passwd
5042 real name passwd:gecos
5043 home directory passwd:dir
5044 shell program passwd:shell
5046 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
5047 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
5048 system's group database:
5051 ======================= ============
5052 group name group:name
5053 group password group:passwd
5055 group members group:mem
5057 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
5058 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
5062 ========================= ===============
5063 official name of host hostent:name
5064 alias list hostent:aliases
5065 host address type hostent:addrtype
5066 length of address hostent:length
5067 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
5069 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
5070 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
5074 ========================= ===============
5075 official name of net netent:name
5076 alias list netent:aliases
5077 net number type netent:addrtype
5078 net number netent:net
5080 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
5081 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
5085 ========================= ===============
5086 official protocol name protoent:name
5087 alias list protoent:aliases
5088 protocol number protoent:proto
5090 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
5091 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
5095 ========================= ===============
5096 official service name servent:name
5097 alias list servent:aliases
5098 port number servent:port
5099 protocol to use servent:proto
5101 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
5102 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
5105 ======================================== ===============
5106 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
5107 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
5108 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
5109 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
5111 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
5112 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
5113 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
5115 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
5116 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
5118 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
5119 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
5121 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
5122 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
5124 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
5126 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
5128 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
5129 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
5130 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
5132 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
5133 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
5134 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
5135 return the remaining characters as a string.
5137 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
5138 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
5139 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
5141 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
5143 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5145 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
5148 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
5151 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
5152 and returns the array
5154 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
5155 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
5156 the user to interpret the data both ways.
5158 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5160 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
5161 symbol's value from C code:
5163 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
5164 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
5165 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
5166 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
5168 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
5169 without assigning them a value.
5171 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
5172 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
5173 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
5175 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
5176 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
5177 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
5179 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
5180 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
5182 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
5183 doesn't actually care about that.
5185 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
5186 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
5187 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
5189 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
5190 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
5191 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
5192 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
5193 which we have just created and initialized.
5195 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
5196 should one occur. We call it like this:
5197 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
5199 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
5200 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
5201 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
5202 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
5203 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
5204 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
5207 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
5208 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
5209 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
5210 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
5211 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
5212 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
5213 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
5216 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
5217 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
5218 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
5219 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
5220 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
5223 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
5224 scm_internal_catch, except:
5226 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
5227 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
5228 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
5229 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
5232 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
5233 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
5234 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
5236 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
5237 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
5238 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
5239 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
5242 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
5243 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
5244 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
5246 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
5247 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
5248 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
5249 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
5250 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
5252 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
5253 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
5254 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
5256 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
5257 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
5258 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
5260 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
5261 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
5263 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
5264 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
5265 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
5268 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
5269 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
5270 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
5271 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
5272 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
5273 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
5274 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
5277 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
5278 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
5280 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
5281 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
5282 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
5283 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
5284 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
5287 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
5288 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
5290 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
5291 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
5294 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
5295 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
5297 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5300 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
5301 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
5302 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
5303 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
5304 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
5305 given the following arguments:
5307 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
5309 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
5311 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
5313 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5316 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
5317 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
5318 command-line arguments.
5320 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
5321 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
5322 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
5323 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
5324 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
5325 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
5328 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5331 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
5332 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
5334 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
5335 rearranged slightly. They are now:
5337 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5338 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
5339 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
5340 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
5342 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5343 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
5345 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5346 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
5347 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
5348 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
5350 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5351 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
5353 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
5354 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
5356 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
5358 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
5359 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
5360 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
5363 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
5364 returns a port instead of an FD object.
5366 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
5367 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
5372 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
5375 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
5377 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
5378 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
5379 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
5380 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
5382 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
5384 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
5386 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
5387 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
5388 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
5389 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
5390 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
5391 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
5392 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
5393 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
5394 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
5395 for more information.
5397 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
5398 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
5400 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
5401 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
5402 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
5403 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
5404 following two lines at the top of the file:
5406 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5409 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
5410 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
5411 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
5413 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
5415 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5417 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
5420 (display (car args))
5421 (if (pair? (cdr args))
5423 (loop (cdr args)))))
5426 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
5427 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
5428 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
5429 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
5430 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
5431 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
5435 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
5438 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
5441 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
5443 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
5444 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
5445 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
5446 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
5447 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
5450 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
5451 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
5452 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
5453 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
5454 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
5457 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
5460 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
5461 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
5462 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
5465 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
5466 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
5467 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
5469 to see a backtrace, and
5470 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
5471 to see them by default.
5475 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
5477 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
5479 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
5480 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
5483 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
5484 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
5485 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
5486 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
5489 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
5490 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
5491 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
5492 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
5493 functions which inspired them.
5495 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
5496 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
5500 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
5502 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
5504 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
5505 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
5508 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
5509 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
5510 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
5512 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
5513 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
5514 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
5515 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
5516 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
5518 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
5520 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
5521 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
5522 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
5525 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
5528 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
5530 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
5531 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
5532 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
5533 above should serve their purposes.
5535 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
5536 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
5537 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
5538 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
5540 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
5543 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
5544 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
5545 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
5546 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
5548 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
5549 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
5550 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
5551 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
5553 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
5554 for the `read' function.
5557 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
5558 to that of `integer?'.
5560 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
5561 use the R4RS names for these functions.
5563 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
5564 it simply returns the object's property list.
5566 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
5567 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
5568 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
5569 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
5571 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
5573 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
5576 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
5578 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
5579 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
5581 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
5583 void (*main_func) (),
5586 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
5587 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
5588 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
5589 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
5590 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
5592 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
5593 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
5594 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
5595 know which arguments have been processed.
5597 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
5598 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
5599 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
5600 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
5601 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
5603 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
5604 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
5605 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
5606 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
5607 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
5608 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
5609 people from making that mistake.
5611 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
5612 convenient ways to override these when desired.
5614 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
5616 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
5620 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
5623 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
5624 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
5625 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
5626 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
5629 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
5630 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
5631 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
5632 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
5635 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
5636 have been added to the Guile library.
5638 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
5639 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
5640 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
5643 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
5644 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
5645 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
5647 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
5648 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
5649 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
5650 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
5651 argument from the list.
5654 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
5657 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
5658 null-terminated string, and returns it.
5660 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
5661 to a Scheme port object.
5663 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
5664 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
5669 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
5671 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
5672 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
5673 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
5674 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
5675 code as a special datatype.
5677 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
5678 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
5679 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
5680 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
5681 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
5684 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
5685 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
5686 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
5687 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
5688 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
5690 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
5693 Copyright information:
5695 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
5697 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
5698 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
5699 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
5700 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
5702 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
5703 of this document, or of portions of it,
5704 under the above conditions, provided also that they
5705 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
5710 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"