1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
7 Each release reports the NEWS in the following sections:
9 * Changes to the distribution
10 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
11 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
12 * Changes to the C interface
15 Changes since the stable branch:
17 * Changes to the distribution
19 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
21 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
23 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
25 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
26 At the moment it is being used to handle Guile's bignums.
28 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
30 Guile now has config.h and libguile/scmconfig.h. The former is not
31 installed and is private. The latter is installed and used by Guile's
32 public headers. config.h is generated by configure and autoheader,
33 and scmconfig.h is generated by a small C program, gen-scmconfig at
34 build time based in part on the contents of config.h.
36 Seen libguile/__scm.h and gen-scmconfig.c for more information.
38 Note too that nearly all public defines are now set to either 1 or 0
39 rather than being set to 1 or left undefined. See gen-scmconfig.c and
40 the GNU Coding Guidelines for the rationale. However, pre-existing
41 defines that were not renamed were not changed. i.e. GUILE_DEBUG is
42 still either 1 or undefined.
44 ** The INSTALL file is now the generic automake installed one.
46 Guile specific instructions can be found in the README.
48 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
50 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
51 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
52 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
53 so the current effective-version is "1.6". The effective version
54 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
55 items like the versioned share directory name
56 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.6.
58 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
59 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
60 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
61 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
62 with each micro release during a stable series.
64 ** Thread implementation has changed.
66 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
67 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
68 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
69 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
70 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
73 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
74 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
75 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
76 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
77 the GC. See the manual for details. [XXX - write this.]
79 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
80 in which case "null" threads are used.
82 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
84 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when
85 you don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but
86 where you have some section(s) of code which you consider can run
87 in parallel to other sections.
89 They "flag" (with dynamic extent) sections of code to be of
90 "serial" or "parallel" nature and have the single effect of
91 preventing a serial section from being run in parallel with any
92 serial section (including itself).
94 Both serialize and parallelize can be nested. If so, the
95 inner-most construct is in effect.
97 NOTE 1: A serial section can run in parallel with a parallel
100 NOTE 2: If a serial section S is "interrupted" by a parallel
101 section P in the following manner: S = S1 P S2, S2 is not
102 guaranteed to be resumed by the same thread that previously
105 WARNING: Spawning new threads within a serial section have
106 undefined effects. It is OK, though, to spawn threads in unflagged
107 sections of code where neither serialize or parallelize is in
110 A typical usage is when Guile is used as scripting language in some
111 application doing heavy computations. If each thread is
112 encapsulated with a serialize form, you can then put a parallelize
113 form around the code performing the heavy computations (typically a
114 C code primitive), enabling the computations to run in parallel
115 while the scripting code runs single-threadedly.
117 ** New module (srfi srfi-26)
119 This is an implementation of SRFI-26.
121 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
123 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
124 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
126 ** Guile now includes its own version of libltdl.
128 We now use a modified version of libltdl that allows us to make
129 improvements to it without having to rely on libtool releases.
131 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
133 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
134 provided. Use 'make html'.
136 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
138 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
140 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
141 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
143 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
145 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
146 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
148 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
150 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
151 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
154 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
157 (define-module (demo)
161 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
164 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
166 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
168 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
171 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
173 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
174 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
175 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
178 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
179 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
180 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
183 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
185 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
186 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
187 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
190 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
193 ** Checking for duplicate bindings in module system
195 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
198 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more duplicates
199 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
207 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
208 has been detected is to
210 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
211 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
212 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
215 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
218 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
220 to your .guile init file.
222 The syntax for the :duplicates option is:
224 :duplicates HANDLER-NAME | (HANDLER1-NAME HANDLER2-NAME ...)
226 Specifying multiple handlers is useful since some handlers (such as
227 replace) can defer conflict resolution to others. Each handler is
228 tried until a binding is selected.
230 Currently available duplicates handlers are:
232 check report an error for bindings with a common name
233 warn issue a warning for bindings with a common name
234 replace replace bindings which have an imported replacement
235 warn-override-core issue a warning for imports which override core bindings
236 and accept the override
237 first select the first encountered binding (override)
238 last select the last encountered binding (override)
240 These two are provided by the (oop goops) module:
242 merge-generics merge generic functions with a common name
243 into an <extended-generic>
244 merge-accessors merge accessors with a common name
246 The default duplicates handler is:
248 (replace warn-override-core warn last)
250 A recommended handler (which is likely to correspond to future Guile
251 behavior) can be installed with:
253 (default-duplicate-binding-handler '(replace warn-override-core check))
255 ** New define-module option: :replace
257 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
260 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
261 for the core binding `format'.
263 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
265 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
266 a prefix to all imported bindings.
269 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
271 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
274 ** Merging generic functions
276 It is sometimes tempting to use GOOPS accessors with short names.
277 For example, it is tempting to use the name `x' for the x-coordinate
280 Assume that we work with a graphical package which needs to use two
281 independent vector packages for 2D and 3D vectors respectively. If
282 both packages export `x' we will encounter a name collision.
284 This can now be resolved automagically with the duplicates handler
285 `merge-generics' which gives the module system license to merge all
286 generic functions sharing a common name:
288 (define-module (math 2D-vectors)
289 :use-module (oop goops)
292 (define-module (math 3D-vectors)
293 :use-module (oop goops)
296 (define-module (my-module)
297 :use-module (math 2D-vectors)
298 :use-module (math 3D-vectors)
299 :duplicates merge-generics)
301 x in (my-module) will now share methods with x in both imported
304 There will, in fact, now be three distinct generic functions named
305 `x': x in (2D-vectors), x in (3D-vectors), and x in (my-module). The
306 last function will be an <extended-generic>, extending the previous
309 Let's call the imported generic functions the "ancestor functions". x
310 in (my-module) is, in turn, a "descendant function" of the imported
311 functions, extending its ancestors.
313 For any generic function G, the applicable methods are selected from
314 the union of the methods of the descendant functions, the methods of G
315 itself and the methods of the ancestor functions.
317 This, ancestor functions share methods with their descendants and vice
318 versa. This implies that x in (math 2D-vectors) can will share the
319 methods of x in (my-module) and vice versa, while x in (math 2D-vectors)
320 doesn't share the methods of x in (math 3D-vectors), thus preserving
323 Sharing is dynamic, so that adding new methods to a descendant implies
324 adding it to the ancestor.
326 If duplicates checking is desired in the above example, the following
327 form of the :duplicates option can be used instead:
329 :duplicates (merge-generics check)
331 ** New function: effective-version
333 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
334 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
335 to the distribution" above.
337 ** Futures: future, make-future, future-ref
339 Futures are like promises, but begun immediately in a new thread. See
340 the "Futures" section in the reference manual.
342 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
344 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
345 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
347 ** Fair mutexes and condition variables
349 Fair mutexes and condition variables have been added. The fairness
350 means that scheduling is arranged to give as equal time shares as
351 possible and that threads are awakened in a first-in-first-out
352 manner. This is not guaranteed with standard mutexes and condition
355 In addition, fair mutexes are recursive. Locking a fair mutex that
356 you have already locked will succeed. Every call to lock-mutex must
357 be matched with a call to unlock-mutex. Only the last call to
358 unlock-mutex will actually unlock the mutex.
360 A fair condition variable must be used together with a fair mutex,
361 just as a standard condition variable must be used together with a
364 ** New functions: make-fair-mutex, make-fair-condition-variable'
366 Make a new fair mutex and a new fair condition variable respectively.
368 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
370 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
371 instead if blocking and indicate failure.
373 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
375 The funtion 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
376 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
379 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
381 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
383 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
385 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
386 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
387 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
390 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
391 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
392 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
395 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
396 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
398 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
400 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
401 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
404 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
405 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
407 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
408 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
409 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
410 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
411 level for the current thread.
413 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
415 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
417 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
418 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
421 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
423 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
425 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
428 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
430 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
433 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
434 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
435 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
437 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
438 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
439 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
440 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
451 ERROR: Numerical overflow
453 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
456 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
458 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
459 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
460 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
471 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
473 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
474 them is also done exactly, of course:
479 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
482 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
483 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
485 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
487 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
488 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
489 equal to a floating point number. For example:
491 (inexact->exact 1.234)
492 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
494 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitely:
496 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
499 ** New function 'rationalize'.
501 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
502 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
504 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
507 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
508 result when both its arguments are exact.
510 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
512 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
513 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
514 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
516 ** We now have uninterned symbols.
518 The new function 'make-symbol' will return a uninterned symbol. This
519 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
520 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
522 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
525 ** pretty-print has more options.
527 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
528 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
529 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
531 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
533 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
534 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
535 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
537 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
539 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
540 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
542 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
544 Change your code to use either procedure->memoizing-macro or, probably better,
545 to use r5rs macros. Also, be aware that macro expansion will not be done
546 during evaluation, but prior to evaluation.
548 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
550 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
551 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
552 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
553 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
554 without the soft port blocking.
556 ** New debugging feature: breakpoints.
558 Guile now has breakpoints. For details see the `Debugging Features'
559 chapter in the reference manual.
561 ** Deprecated: undefine
563 There is no replacement for undefine.
565 ** call-with-output-string doesn't segv on closed port
567 Previously call-with-output-string would give a segmentation fault if
568 the string port was closed by the called function. An exception is
571 ** (ice-9 popen) duplicate pipe fd fix
573 open-pipe, open-input-pipe and open-output-pipe left an extra copy of
574 their pipe file descriptor in the child, which was normally harmless,
575 but it can prevent the parent seeing eof or a broken pipe immediately
576 and has now been fixed.
578 ** source-properties and set-source-properties! fix
580 Properties set with set-source-properties! can now be read back
581 correctly with source-properties.
585 delete and delete! now call the "=" procedure with arguments in the
586 order described by the SRFI-1 specification
588 list-copy now accepts improper lists, per the specification.
592 Larger values in 64-bit vectors should print correctly now.
596 date-week-number now correctly respects the requested day of week
599 * Changes to the C interface
601 ** Many of the old macros for doing type conversions between C and
602 Scheme have been deprecated and replaced with functions (or macros
603 that behave like functions).
607 These are the deprecated macros and their replacements:
609 SCM_EQ_P -> scm_is_eq
610 SCM_FALSEP -> scm_is_false
611 SCM_NFALSEP -> scm_is_true
612 SCM_BOOL -> scm_from_bool
613 SCM_NEGATE_BOOL -> scm_from_bool (! ...)
614 SCM_BOOLP -> scm_is_bool
615 SCM_BOOL_NOT -> scm_not
617 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
618 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
619 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
620 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
622 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
624 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which return a pointer
625 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
627 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
628 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
629 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
630 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
632 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
634 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
635 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
636 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
638 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
639 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
641 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
642 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
643 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
644 smob words. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
646 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and reentries.
648 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
649 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
650 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
651 prevent a potential memory leak:
660 mem = scm_malloc (100);
661 scm_frame_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITELY);
663 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
664 SCM_FRAME_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless. */
670 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITELY, MEM will be freed by
671 SCM_FRAME_END as well.
675 For full documentation, see the node "Frames" in the manual.
677 ** New way to block and unblock asyncs
679 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
680 scm_frame_block_asyncs in a 'frame' (see above). Likewise for
681 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_frame_unblock_asyncs.
683 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
685 C code can now use scm_frame_current_<foo>_port in a 'frame' (see
686 above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
688 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
690 C code can now use scm_frame_fluid in a 'frame' (see
691 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
693 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
695 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
696 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
697 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
699 ** scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed from public use.
701 For guile internal use, the functions scm_i_unmemocopy_expr,
702 scm_i_unmemocopy_body and scm_i_unmemoize_expr are provided to replace
703 scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize. User code should not have used
704 scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize and thus should not use the replacement
707 Background: Formerly, scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize would have allowed to
708 unmemoize a single expression as well as a sequence of body forms. This would
709 have lead to problems when unmemoizing code of the new memoizer. Now the two
710 cases have to be distinguished.
713 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
715 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
716 private or renamed with a more suitable public name. See below for
717 the ones which have been renamed.
719 ** HAVE_STDINT_H and HAVE_INTTYPES_H have been removed from public use.
721 HAVE_STDINT_H and HAVE_INTTYPES_H removed from public use. These are
722 no longer needed since the older uses of stdint.h and inttypes.h are
723 now handled by configure.in and gen-scmconfig.c.
725 ** USE_DLL_IMPORT is no longer defined publically.
727 gen-scmconfig now uses it to decide what contents to place in the
728 public scmconfig.h header without adding the USE_DLL_IMPORT itself.
730 ** HAVE_LIMITS_H has been removed from public use.
732 gen-scmconfig now just uses HAVE_LIMITS_H to decide whether or not to
733 add a limits.h include in scmconfig.h.
735 ** time.h, sys/time.h, etc. #ifdefery has been removed from public headers.
737 gen-scmconfig now just uses the same logic to decide what time related
738 #includes to add to scmconfig.h.
740 ** HAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC has been removed from public use.
742 scmconfig.h now just defines scm_t_timespec.
744 ** HAVE_PTRDIFF has been removed from public use and Guile doesn't
747 Guile now publically defines scm_t_ptrdiff and
748 SCM_SIZEOF_SCM_T_PTRDIFF in scmconfig.h, and all occurrences of
749 ptrdiff_t have been replaced with scm_t_ptrdiff.
751 Guile defines its own type this rather than just relying on ptrdiff_t
752 and SCM_SIZEOF_PTRDIFF_T because Guile actually typedefs long to
753 scm_t_ptrdiff when ptrdiff_t isn't available. A public "typedef long
754 ptrdiff_t" could conflict with other headers.
756 ** HAVE_UINTPTR_T and HAVE_UINTPTR_T have been removed from public use.
758 They are replaced by public definitions of SCM_SIZEOF_UINTPTR_T and
759 SCM_SIZEOF_INTPTR_T. These are defined to 0 if the corresponding type
762 ** The public #define STDC_HEADERS has been renamed to SCM_HAVE_STDC_HEADERS.
764 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
766 ** The public #define HAVE_SYS_SELECT has been renamed to
767 SCM_HAVE_SYS_SELECT_H.
769 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
771 ** The public #define HAVE_FLOATINGPOINT_H has been renamed to
772 SCM_HAVE_FLOATINGPOINT_H.
774 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
776 ** The public #define HAVE_IEEEFP_H has been renamed to SCM_HAVE_IEEEFP_H.
778 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
780 ** The public #define HAVE_NAN_H has been renamed to SCM_HAVE_NAN_H.
782 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
784 ** The public #define HAVE_WINSOCK2_H has been renamed to SCM_HAVE_WINSOCK2_H.
786 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
788 ** The public #define HAVE_ARRAYS has been renamed to SCM_HAVE_ARRAYS.
790 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
792 ** The public #define STACK_GROWS_UP has been renamed to SCM_STACK_GROWS_UP.
794 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
796 ** The public #define USE_PTHREAD_THREADS has been renamed to
797 SCM_USE_PTHREAD_THREADS.
799 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
801 ** The public #define USE_NULL_THREADS has been renamed to
802 SCM_USE_NULL_THREADS.
804 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
806 ** The public #define USE_COOP_THREADS has been renamed to
807 SCM_USE_COOP_THREADS.
809 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
811 ** SCM_C_INLINE is publically defined if possible.
813 If the platform has a way to define inline functions, SCM_C_INLINE
814 will be defined to that text. Otherwise it will be undefined. This
815 is a little bit different than autoconf's normal handling of the
816 inline define via AC_C_INLINE.
818 ** Guile now publically defines some basic type infrastructure.
823 SCM_SIZEOF_UNSIGNED_CHAR
825 SCM_SIZEOF_UNSIGNED_SHORT
827 SCM_SIZEOF_UNSIGNED_LONG
829 SCM_SIZEOF_UNSIGNED_INT
830 SCM_SIZEOF_LONG_LONG /* defined to 0 if type not available */
831 SCM_SIZEOF_UNSIGNED_LONG_LONG /* defined to 0 if type not available */
840 Guile always defines these to 0 or 1
845 and when either of these are defined to 1, also defines
856 ** The macro SCM_IFLAGP now only returns true for flags
858 User code should never have used this macro anyway. And, you should not use
859 it in the future either. Thus, the following explanation is just for the
860 impropable case that your code actually made use of this macro, and that you
861 are willing to depend on internals which will probably change in the near
864 Formerly, SCM_IFLAGP also returned true for evaluator bytecodes created with
865 SCM_MAKSPCSYM (short instructions) and evaluator bytecodes created with
866 SCM_MAKISYM (short instructions). Now, SCM_IFLAG only returns true for
867 Guile's special constants created with SCM_MAKIFLAG. To achieve the old
868 behaviour, instead of
872 you would have to write
874 (SCM_ISYMP(x) || SCM_IFLAGP(x))
876 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
878 This macro is not intended for public use. However, if you allocated types
879 with tc16 type codes in a way that you would have needed this macro, you are
880 expected to have a deep knowledge of Guile's type system. Thus, you should
881 know how to replace this macro.
883 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
885 Use SCM_INEXACTP instead.
887 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
889 Use SCM_REALP instead.
891 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
893 Use SCM_COMPLEXP instead.
895 ** The preprocessor define USE_THREADS has been deprecated.
897 Going forward, assume that the thread API is always present.
899 ** The preprocessor define GUILE_ISELECT has been deprecated.
901 Going forward, assume that scm_internal_select is always present.
903 ** The preprocessor define READER_EXTENSIONS has been deprecated.
905 Going forward, assume that the features represented by
906 READER_EXTENSIONS are always present.
908 ** The preprocessor define DEBUG_EXTENSIONS has been deprecated.
910 Going forward, assume that the features represented by
911 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS are always present.
913 ** The preprocessor define DYNAMIC_LINKING has been deprecated.
915 Going forward, assume that the features represented by
916 DYNAMIC_LINKING are always present.
918 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
920 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
921 programs. (Do not use.)
923 ** New function: scm_effective_version
925 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
926 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
927 to the distribution" above.
929 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
931 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
932 arguments are now passed directly:
934 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
936 This is an incompatible change.
938 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
940 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
941 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
942 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
944 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
945 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
947 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
949 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
951 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
952 function in the init section.
954 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
956 ** New macros SCM_VECTOR_REF and SCM_VECTOR_SET.
958 Use these in preference to SCM_VELTS.
960 ** The SCM_VELTS macros now returns a read-only vector. For writing,
961 use the new macros SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS or SCM_VECTOR_SET. The use of
962 SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS is discouraged, though.
964 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
966 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
967 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
968 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
969 stays roughly constant.
971 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
972 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
973 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
974 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
975 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
978 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
979 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
980 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
981 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
983 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
985 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
987 ** The struct scm_cell has been renamed to scm_t_cell
989 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
990 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
991 initializes a new cell (see below).
993 ** New functions for memory management
995 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
996 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
997 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
998 cause aborts in long running programs.
1000 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
1001 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
1003 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
1004 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
1005 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
1006 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
1007 details and for upgrading instructions.
1009 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
1010 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
1011 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
1013 ** New function: scm_str2string
1015 This function creates a scheme string from a 0-terminated C string. The input
1018 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
1020 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
1021 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
1022 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
1023 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
1024 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
1026 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
1027 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
1028 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
1030 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, QT_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
1031 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
1033 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
1035 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old macros
1036 had problems because with them allocation and initialization was separated and
1037 the GC could sometimes observe half initialized cells. Only careful coding by
1038 the user of SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
1040 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
1042 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
1045 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
1047 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
1049 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
1051 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or, probably better, to use r5rs
1052 macros. Also, be aware that macro expansion will not be done during
1053 evaluation, but prior to evaluation.
1055 ** Removed from scm_root_state: def_inp, def_outp, def_errp, together
1056 with corresponding macros scm_def_inp, scm_def_outp and scm_def_errp.
1057 These were undocumented and unused copies of the standard ports at the
1058 time that Guile was initialised. Normally the current ports should be
1059 used instead, obtained from scm_current_input_port () etc. If an
1060 application needs to retain earlier ports, it should save them in a
1061 gc-protected location.
1063 ** Removed compile time option MEMOIZE_LOCALS
1065 Now, caching of local variable positions during memoization is mandatory.
1066 However, the option to disable the caching has most probably not been used
1069 ** Removed compile time option SCM_RECKLESS
1071 Full number of arguments checking of closures is mandatory now. However, the
1072 option to disable the checking has most probably not been used anyway.
1074 ** Removed compile time option SCM_CAUTIOUS
1076 Full number of arguments checking of closures is mandatory now. However, the
1077 option to disable the checking has most probably not been used anyway.
1079 ** Deprecated configure flags USE_THREADS and GUILE_ISELECT
1081 Previously, when the C preprocessor macro USE_THREADS was defined,
1082 libguile included a thread API. This API is now always included, even
1083 when threads are not really supported. Thus, you don't need to test
1086 Analogously, GUILE_ISELECT was defined when the function
1087 scm_internal_select was provided by Guile. This function is now
1088 always defined, and GUILE_ISELECT with it.
1090 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
1092 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
1093 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
1095 ** Deprecated definitions of error strings: scm_s_expression, scm_s_test,
1096 scm_s_body, scm_s_bindings, scm_s_variable, scm_s_clauses, scm_s_formals
1098 These error message strings were used to issue syntax error messages by
1099 guile's evaluator. It's unlikely that they have been used by user code.
1101 ** Deprecated helper macros for evaluation and application: SCM_EVALIM2,
1102 SCM_EVALIM, SCM_XEVAL, SCM_XEVALCAR
1104 These macros were used in the implementation of the evaluator. It's unlikely
1105 that they have been used by user code.
1107 ** Deprecated helper functions for evaluation and application:
1108 scm_m_expand_body, scm_macroexp
1110 These functions were used in the implementation of the evaluator. It's
1111 unlikely that they have been used by user code.
1113 ** Deprecated functions and variables for evaluation and application:
1114 scm_ceval, scm_deval and scm_ceval_ptr
1116 These functions and variables were used in the implementation of the
1117 evaluator. It's unlikely that they have been used by user code. If you have
1118 used these functions, switch to scm_eval or scm_eval_x.
1120 ** Deprecated functions for unmemoization: scm_unmemocar
1122 ** Deprecated definitions for iloc and isym handling
1124 SCM_ILOC00, SCM_IDINC, SCM_IDSTMSK, SCM_IFRINC, SCM_ICDR, SCM_IFRAME,
1125 SCM_IDIST, SCM_ICDRP, SCM_ISYMNUM, SCM_ISYMCHARS, scm_isymnames.
1127 These definitions were used in the implementation of the evaluator. It's
1128 unlikely that they have been used by user code.
1130 ** Removed definitions: scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify,
1131 scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify, scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify,
1132 scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify, scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell,
1133 scm_debug_newcell2, scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH,
1134 SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY, SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY,
1135 SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED, scm_debug_newcell,
1136 scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL,
1137 SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL,
1138 SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS,
1139 scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var, *top-level-lookup-closure*,
1140 scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3, scm_eval2,
1141 root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP,
1142 scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring, scm_tc7_substring,
1143 sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP, SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig,
1144 scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big,
1145 scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT, SCM_SETCHARS,
1146 SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_LENGTH_MAX,
1147 SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS,
1148 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR, scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern,
1149 scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
1150 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
1151 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
1152 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
1153 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
1154 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
1155 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
1156 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
1157 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
1158 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
1159 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
1160 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable
1162 ** Deprecated definitions for debugging: scm_debug_mode, SCM_DEBUGGINGP
1164 These functions were used in the implementation of the evaluator. It's
1165 unlikely that they have been used by user code.
1167 ** Removed macro SCM_MAKSPCSYM
1169 This macro was used for defining byte codes of the evaluator. It is almost
1170 impossible that user code has used this macro.
1173 Changes since Guile 1.4:
1175 * Changes to the distribution
1177 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
1179 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
1181 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
1182 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
1183 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
1184 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
1185 indicate major changes in Guile.
1187 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
1188 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
1189 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
1190 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
1192 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
1193 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
1194 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
1195 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
1196 micro version number.
1198 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
1200 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
1202 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
1203 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
1205 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
1207 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
1208 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
1209 See INSTALL and README for more information.
1211 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
1213 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
1214 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
1215 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
1218 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
1220 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
1223 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
1225 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
1226 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
1228 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
1230 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
1231 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
1234 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
1236 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
1239 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
1242 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
1244 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
1246 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
1247 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
1248 open-output-string, get-output-string.
1250 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
1252 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
1254 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
1257 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
1259 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
1261 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
1263 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
1264 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
1265 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
1267 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
1269 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
1271 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
1272 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
1281 See README there for more info.
1283 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
1284 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
1287 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
1289 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
1291 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
1293 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
1294 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
1295 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
1297 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
1299 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
1300 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
1301 to be named `and-let*', of course.
1303 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
1304 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
1306 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
1309 (oop goops describe)
1311 (oop goops active-slot)
1312 (oop goops composite-slot)
1314 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
1315 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
1316 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
1318 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
1320 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
1321 in the default environment:
1323 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
1324 %read-line write-line
1326 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
1327 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
1329 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
1331 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
1334 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
1335 can be used for similar functionality.
1337 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
1339 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
1340 it defines two procedures:
1342 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1344 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
1345 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1346 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
1349 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1351 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
1352 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1353 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
1354 write large strings.
1356 ** New module (ice-9 match)
1358 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
1359 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
1361 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
1363 for complete documentation.
1365 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
1367 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
1368 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
1369 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
1370 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
1372 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
1373 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
1377 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
1378 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
1379 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
1382 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
1385 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
1386 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
1388 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
1389 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
1392 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
1395 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
1397 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
1399 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1401 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
1403 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
1404 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
1405 Scheme programs easier.
1407 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
1408 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
1409 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
1410 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
1411 `cond-expand' when using this option.
1414 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
1415 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
1417 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
1420 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
1422 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
1423 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
1424 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
1427 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1429 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
1431 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
1432 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
1433 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
1434 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
1435 was also ASCII, for example.
1437 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
1439 tag - no replacement.
1440 fseek - replaced by seek.
1441 list* - replaced by cons*.
1443 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
1447 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
1448 (define m (make-safe-module))
1449 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
1450 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
1451 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
1453 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
1455 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
1456 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
1457 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
1459 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
1461 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
1462 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
1463 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
1464 from the issues related to the module system.
1466 *** New function: load-extension
1468 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
1470 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
1472 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
1473 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
1474 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
1476 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
1478 This function registers a initialization function for use by
1479 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
1480 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
1481 support dynamic linking).
1483 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
1485 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
1486 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
1487 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
1488 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
1491 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
1492 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
1493 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
1494 library and initialize it explicitely.
1496 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
1497 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
1499 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
1501 (define-module (foo bar))
1503 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
1505 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
1507 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
1508 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
1510 (scheme-report-environment 5)
1511 (null-environment 5)
1512 (interaction-environment)
1518 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
1520 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
1521 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
1522 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
1523 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
1525 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
1526 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
1527 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
1528 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
1529 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
1530 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
1531 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
1532 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
1533 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
1534 one eval to the next.
1536 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
1537 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
1538 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
1539 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
1540 subforms are at the top-level as well.
1542 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
1543 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
1544 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
1545 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
1546 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
1547 used in a lexical environment.
1549 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
1550 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
1551 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
1552 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
1553 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
1554 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
1556 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
1558 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
1559 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
1560 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
1561 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
1562 new facilities: selection and renaming.
1564 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
1565 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
1566 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
1568 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
1569 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
1571 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
1572 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
1573 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1575 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1576 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
1578 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
1579 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
1580 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
1581 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
1584 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1585 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
1586 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
1587 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1589 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1590 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1591 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
1593 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1594 ;; and all four by upcasing.
1595 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
1596 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
1597 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
1599 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1601 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1602 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1603 :renamer upcase-symbol))
1605 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
1606 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
1607 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
1609 See manual for more info.
1611 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
1613 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
1614 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
1615 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
1617 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
1619 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
1620 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
1621 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
1623 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
1624 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
1625 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
1626 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
1628 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
1630 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
1631 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
1633 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
1634 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
1635 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
1636 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
1637 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
1640 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
1641 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
1642 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
1643 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
1644 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
1645 successful and #f if it wasn't.
1647 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
1648 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
1649 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
1650 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
1651 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
1653 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
1654 objects are usually permanent.
1656 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
1657 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
1659 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
1661 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
1662 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
1665 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
1669 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
1674 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
1676 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
1677 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
1678 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
1679 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
1681 ** New function `make-object-property'
1683 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
1684 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
1688 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
1689 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
1693 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
1694 source properties eventually.
1696 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
1698 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
1699 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
1700 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
1702 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
1703 will be removed in the next release.
1705 ** New define-module option: pure
1707 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
1712 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
1715 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
1717 Export names NAME1 ...
1719 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
1720 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
1724 (define-module (foo)
1726 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
1729 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
1734 ** New function: object->string OBJ
1736 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
1738 ** New function: port? X
1740 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
1741 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
1743 ** New function: file-port?
1745 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
1747 ** New function: port-for-each proc
1749 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
1750 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
1751 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
1752 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
1753 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
1755 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
1757 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
1758 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
1759 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
1760 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
1761 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
1764 ** New function: close-fdes fd
1766 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
1767 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
1768 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
1769 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
1772 ** New function: crypt password salt
1774 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
1777 ** New function: chroot path
1779 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
1781 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
1783 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
1786 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
1788 Get or set the priority of the running process.
1790 ** New function: getpass prompt
1792 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
1795 ** New function: flock file operation
1797 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
1799 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
1801 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
1804 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
1806 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
1807 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
1808 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
1809 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
1810 of the temporary file.
1812 ** New function: open-input-string string
1814 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
1815 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
1816 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
1818 ** New function: open-output-string
1820 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
1821 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
1823 ** New function: get-output-string
1825 Return the contents of an output string port.
1827 ** New function: identity
1829 Return the argument.
1831 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
1832 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
1834 ** New function: inet-pton family address
1836 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
1837 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
1838 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1841 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
1842 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
1844 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
1846 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
1847 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
1848 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1851 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
1852 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
1853 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
1857 Use `identity' instead.
1863 ** Deprecated: return-it
1867 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
1869 Use `string-length' instead.
1871 ** Deprecated: flags
1873 Use `logior' instead.
1875 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
1877 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
1878 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
1879 port-for-each is more flexible.
1881 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
1882 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
1883 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
1885 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
1887 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
1889 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
1891 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
1893 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
1895 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
1896 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
1898 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
1899 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
1901 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
1902 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
1904 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
1906 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
1907 Removed function: builtin-bindings
1909 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
1910 Use module system operations for all variables.
1912 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
1914 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
1917 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
1919 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
1920 The following bugs have been fixed:
1922 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
1923 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
1926 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
1927 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
1928 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
1930 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
1931 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
1933 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
1934 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
1937 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
1938 The expansion used to be like so:
1940 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
1942 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
1944 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
1946 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
1947 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
1949 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
1951 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
1952 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
1953 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
1957 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
1958 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
1960 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
1965 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
1966 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
1968 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
1969 and `d', other keywords allowed.
1970 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
1972 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
1975 * Changes to the C interface
1977 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
1979 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
1980 with "_t". What a concept.
1982 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
1984 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
1986 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
1990 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
1991 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
1993 *** C Functions removed
1995 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
1996 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
1997 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
1998 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
1999 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
2000 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
2001 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
2003 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
2005 Use scm_mem2string instead.
2007 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
2009 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
2011 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
2012 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
2014 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
2016 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
2019 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
2021 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
2023 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
2025 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
2026 Evaluation" in the manual.
2028 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
2030 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
2031 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
2033 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
2035 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
2036 Constructors" in the manual.
2038 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
2040 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
2041 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
2043 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
2045 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
2047 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
2048 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
2049 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
2051 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
2053 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
2055 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
2056 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
2057 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
2060 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
2062 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
2064 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
2065 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
2067 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
2069 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
2070 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
2071 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
2072 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
2074 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
2075 scm_primitive_property_ref
2076 scm_primitive_property_set_x
2077 scm_primitive_property_del_x
2079 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
2080 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
2082 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
2084 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
2085 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
2086 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
2087 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
2089 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
2091 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
2092 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
2093 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
2094 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
2095 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
2096 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
2097 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
2099 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
2100 scm_remember_upto_here
2102 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
2104 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
2106 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
2107 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
2109 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
2111 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
2113 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
2115 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
2117 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
2119 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
2120 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
2121 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
2122 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
2123 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
2124 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
2126 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
2128 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
2130 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
2131 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
2132 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
2134 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
2136 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
2137 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
2138 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
2140 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
2142 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
2143 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
2146 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
2149 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
2150 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
2153 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
2155 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
2157 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
2159 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2161 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
2163 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
2165 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
2166 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
2167 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
2168 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
2169 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
2170 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
2171 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
2172 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
2173 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
2174 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
2175 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
2176 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
2177 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
2178 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
2179 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
2181 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
2182 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
2183 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
2184 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
2185 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
2186 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
2187 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
2188 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
2189 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2190 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
2191 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
2192 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
2193 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
2194 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
2195 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
2196 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
2197 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
2198 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
2199 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
2200 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
2201 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
2202 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
2203 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
2204 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
2205 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
2206 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
2207 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
2208 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
2209 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
2211 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
2213 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
2215 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
2216 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
2218 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
2220 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
2222 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
2224 Use scm_string_hash instead.
2226 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
2228 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
2230 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
2232 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
2234 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
2237 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
2238 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
2240 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
2242 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
2244 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
2246 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
2248 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
2250 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
2252 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
2254 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
2257 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
2259 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
2261 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
2263 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
2264 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
2266 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
2267 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
2269 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
2271 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
2272 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
2273 scm_module_define, scm_define.
2275 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
2277 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
2279 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
2280 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
2282 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
2283 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
2284 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
2285 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
2287 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
2288 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
2289 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
2291 Use the new ones from above instead.
2293 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
2295 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
2296 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
2297 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
2299 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
2300 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
2302 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
2303 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
2306 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
2307 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
2309 Use the new functions instead.
2311 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
2314 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
2316 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
2318 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
2321 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
2323 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
2326 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
2328 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
2331 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
2332 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
2333 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
2335 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
2337 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
2338 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
2340 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
2341 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
2342 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
2343 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
2346 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
2348 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
2349 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
2350 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
2351 inexact for an exact.
2353 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
2354 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
2355 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
2358 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
2359 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
2360 accept an inexact argument.
2362 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
2363 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
2365 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
2368 ** New number validation macros:
2369 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
2373 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
2375 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
2376 scm_unprotect_object.
2378 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
2380 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
2382 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
2385 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
2387 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
2391 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
2393 * Changes to the distribution
2395 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
2397 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
2398 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
2399 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
2400 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
2401 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
2402 obtain these programs.
2403 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
2404 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
2406 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
2407 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
2408 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
2409 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
2410 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
2412 However, this approach means that minor differences between
2413 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
2414 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
2415 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
2419 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
2422 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
2423 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
2424 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
2425 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
2427 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
2429 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
2431 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
2432 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
2434 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
2435 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
2437 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
2438 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
2440 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
2441 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
2442 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
2443 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
2445 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
2447 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
2451 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
2452 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
2454 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
2456 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
2457 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
2459 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
2460 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
2461 number of objects of that kind.
2463 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
2465 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
2466 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
2467 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
2468 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
2469 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
2471 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
2473 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
2475 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
2477 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
2480 ** New module (ice-9 time)
2482 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
2484 ** New module (ice-9 history)
2486 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
2488 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2490 ** New command line option --debug
2492 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
2494 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
2496 ** New help facility
2498 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
2499 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
2500 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
2501 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
2502 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
2503 (help) gives this text
2505 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
2506 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
2508 Examples: (help help)
2510 (help "output-string")
2512 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
2514 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
2516 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
2517 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
2520 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
2521 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
2522 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
2525 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
2526 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
2527 use absolute filenames when possible.
2529 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
2530 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
2531 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
2534 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
2536 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
2537 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
2538 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
2539 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
2541 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
2543 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
2545 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
2546 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
2547 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
2549 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
2550 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
2551 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
2553 (read-enable 'positions)
2554 (debug-enable 'debug)
2556 ** Backtraces in scripts
2558 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
2562 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
2564 at the top of the script.
2566 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
2567 The second enables backtraces.)
2569 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
2571 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
2572 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
2573 substantially faster than before.
2575 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
2576 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
2578 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
2579 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
2581 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
2583 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
2584 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
2585 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
2587 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
2588 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
2589 when this hook is run in the future.
2591 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
2592 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
2594 ** Improvements to garbage collector
2596 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
2597 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
2600 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
2601 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
2602 more and more memory for certain programs.)
2604 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
2605 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
2607 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
2608 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
2610 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
2611 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
2612 in order not to need further allocation.)
2614 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
2617 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
2618 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
2619 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
2620 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
2622 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
2624 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
2627 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
2629 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
2632 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
2633 GC in percent of total heap size
2636 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
2637 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
2639 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
2641 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
2642 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
2644 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
2646 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
2647 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
2649 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
2651 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
2652 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
2656 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
2657 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
2659 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
2661 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2663 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
2665 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
2667 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
2669 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
2670 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
2672 (simple-format port message . args)
2673 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
2674 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
2675 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
2676 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
2677 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
2678 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
2679 Does not add a trailing newline."
2681 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
2683 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
2684 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
2686 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
2687 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
2689 ** Deprecated: list*
2691 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
2693 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
2695 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
2696 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
2698 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
2699 is returned as result.
2701 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
2703 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
2705 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
2707 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
2708 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
2711 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
2713 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
2715 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
2716 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
2718 * Changes to the gh_ interface
2720 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
2722 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
2724 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2726 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
2728 Thanks to Greg Badros!
2730 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2732 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2733 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
2734 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
2736 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
2739 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
2741 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
2742 the readability of argument checking.
2744 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
2746 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
2748 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
2750 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
2751 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
2752 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
2753 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
2754 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
2755 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
2756 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
2758 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
2760 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
2762 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
2763 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
2765 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
2767 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
2768 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
2771 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
2773 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
2774 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
2775 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
2777 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
2778 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
2779 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
2781 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
2782 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
2783 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
2784 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
2785 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
2786 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
2787 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
2789 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
2790 scm_end_input (object);
2791 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
2792 ptob->flush (object);
2794 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
2795 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
2798 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
2800 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
2802 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
2803 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
2804 removed in a future version.
2806 ** The format of error message strings has changed
2808 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
2809 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
2810 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
2811 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
2813 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
2814 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
2816 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
2819 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
2821 in your configure.in.
2823 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
2828 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
2834 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
2836 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
2840 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
2841 (define make-message string-append)
2843 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
2845 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
2849 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
2854 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
2858 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
2860 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
2861 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
2863 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
2865 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
2866 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
2867 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
2868 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
2869 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
2870 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
2872 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
2873 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
2874 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
2876 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
2877 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
2878 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
2881 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
2882 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
2883 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
2884 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
2885 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
2887 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
2888 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
2889 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
2890 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
2891 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
2892 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
2893 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
2895 Destructors are not yet implemented.
2897 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
2898 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
2899 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
2901 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
2902 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
2903 KEY in the calling thread.
2905 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
2906 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
2907 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
2908 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
2909 associated with the key.
2911 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
2913 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
2914 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
2916 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
2918 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
2919 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
2920 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
2922 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
2924 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
2925 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
2927 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
2929 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
2931 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
2932 returned is undefined.
2934 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
2935 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
2936 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
2938 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
2939 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
2940 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
2942 ** New C level GC hooks
2944 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
2946 scm_before_gc_c_hook
2949 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
2950 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
2951 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
2953 scm_before_mark_c_hook
2954 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
2955 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
2957 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
2958 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
2961 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
2963 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
2964 allocation parameters
2966 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
2967 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
2968 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
2972 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
2973 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
2974 scm_default_max_segment_size
2976 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
2978 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
2979 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
2981 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
2983 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
2984 object and count on the object being protected until
2985 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
2987 The functions also have better time complexity.
2989 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
2990 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
2991 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
2992 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
2993 are no longer needed.
2995 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
2997 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
2998 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
2999 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
3000 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
3002 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
3004 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
3006 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
3008 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
3009 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
3010 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
3011 until this issue has been settled.
3013 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
3015 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
3017 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
3020 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
3022 * Changes to system call interfaces:
3024 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
3025 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
3026 descriptors were checked.
3028 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
3029 atomically written to a pipe.
3031 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
3032 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
3033 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
3034 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
3035 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
3036 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
3037 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
3040 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
3041 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
3042 is changed without calling tzset.
3044 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
3046 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
3047 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
3048 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
3050 (define write-network-long
3051 (lambda (value port)
3052 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
3053 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
3054 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
3056 (define read-network-long
3058 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
3059 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
3060 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
3062 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
3063 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
3065 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
3066 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
3067 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
3068 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
3070 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
3071 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
3072 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
3073 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
3077 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
3079 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3083 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
3084 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
3085 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
3091 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
3092 for a description of available commands.
3094 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
3095 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
3096 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
3098 (debug-enable 'backwards)
3100 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
3101 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
3103 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
3105 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
3107 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
3108 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
3109 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
3110 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
3111 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
3112 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
3115 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
3117 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
3118 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
3119 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
3120 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
3122 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
3123 the file and should not be affected by this change.
3125 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
3127 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3129 ** Readline support has changed again.
3131 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
3132 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
3133 to activate readline is now
3135 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
3138 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
3140 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
3141 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
3142 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
3145 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
3146 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
3147 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
3150 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
3151 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
3152 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
3153 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
3154 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
3155 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
3157 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
3158 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
3160 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
3162 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
3163 object it receives is the same string passed to
3164 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
3165 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
3166 string, not the suffix.
3168 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
3169 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
3170 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
3172 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
3174 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
3175 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
3176 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
3177 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
3180 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3182 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
3184 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
3185 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
3186 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
3187 appear from left to right.
3189 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
3192 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
3194 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
3195 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
3197 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3201 *** New function: hook? OBJ
3203 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
3205 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
3207 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
3208 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
3209 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
3211 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
3213 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
3215 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
3217 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
3220 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
3222 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
3223 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
3224 mentioning it here anyway.
3226 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
3228 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
3229 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
3230 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
3231 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
3234 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
3236 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
3238 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
3240 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
3241 otherwise return #f.
3243 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
3245 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
3246 returned by `opendir'.
3248 ** New function: using-readline?
3250 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
3252 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3254 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
3255 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3257 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3259 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3261 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
3262 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
3263 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3265 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
3267 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
3268 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
3270 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
3272 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
3273 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
3274 documentation slots are not yet used.
3276 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
3278 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
3279 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
3280 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
3285 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
3286 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
3287 (string-append x y))
3289 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
3290 can also be used for concatenating strings.
3292 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
3293 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
3294 be made in a clean way.]
3296 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
3298 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3300 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3302 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
3303 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
3305 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3307 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
3309 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3311 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3313 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
3314 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
3315 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
3316 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
3319 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3321 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
3323 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3325 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3327 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
3328 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
3330 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3332 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
3334 Evaluates the body of a special form.
3336 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
3338 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
3339 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
3340 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
3341 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
3342 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
3343 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
3345 This should not make any difference for most users.
3347 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
3349 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
3350 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
3352 *** New functions for applying generic functions
3354 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
3355 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
3356 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
3357 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
3358 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
3360 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
3362 It is now replaced by:
3364 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
3366 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3367 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3369 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3371 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
3372 This might change when we get the new module system.
3374 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
3378 Changes since Guile 1.3:
3380 * Changes to mailing lists
3382 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
3384 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
3387 * Changes to the distribution
3389 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
3391 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
3392 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
3393 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
3394 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
3395 you explicitly specify it.
3397 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
3398 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
3399 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
3400 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
3401 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
3404 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
3405 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
3406 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
3407 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
3409 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
3410 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
3411 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
3414 You can activate the readline support by issuing
3416 (use-modules (readline-activator))
3419 from your ".guile" file, for example.
3421 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3423 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
3424 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
3425 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
3426 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
3428 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
3429 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
3432 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3434 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
3435 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
3436 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
3437 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
3438 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
3439 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
3440 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
3441 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
3453 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
3454 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
3455 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
3456 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
3457 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
3462 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
3463 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
3471 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
3476 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
3477 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
3480 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
3481 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
3482 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
3483 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
3485 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
3487 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
3489 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
3490 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
3492 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
3494 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
3496 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
3497 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
3499 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
3502 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
3504 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
3506 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
3508 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
3510 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
3512 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
3514 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
3515 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
3516 when the hook was created.
3518 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
3519 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
3520 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
3521 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
3522 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
3523 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
3524 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
3525 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
3526 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
3528 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
3529 the dlopen family of functions.
3531 ** New function `provided?'
3533 - Function: provided? FEATURE
3534 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
3535 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
3536 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
3538 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
3540 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
3541 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
3542 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
3543 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3546 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3547 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
3548 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
3549 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
3551 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
3552 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
3553 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
3556 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
3557 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
3558 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
3559 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
3560 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
3561 but with the flag set.
3563 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
3565 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
3566 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
3568 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
3569 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
3570 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
3571 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
3572 available Scheme format implementations.
3574 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
3575 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
3576 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
3577 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
3578 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
3579 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
3580 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
3581 output is to the current error port if available by the
3582 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
3585 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
3586 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
3587 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
3588 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
3589 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
3590 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
3591 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
3592 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
3594 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
3595 be executed at a time.
3598 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
3600 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
3601 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
3602 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
3604 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
3605 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
3606 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
3607 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
3608 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
3609 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
3610 general form of a directive is:
3612 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
3614 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
3616 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3618 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
3619 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
3620 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
3623 Any (print as `display' does).
3627 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
3631 S-expression (print as `write' does).
3635 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
3641 print number sign always.
3644 print comma separated.
3646 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
3652 print number sign always.
3655 print comma separated.
3657 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
3663 print number sign always.
3666 print comma separated.
3668 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
3674 print number sign always.
3677 print comma separated.
3679 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
3684 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
3688 print a number as a Roman numeral.
3691 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
3694 print a number as an ordinal English number.
3697 print a number as a cardinal English number.
3702 prints `y' and `ies'.
3705 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3708 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3713 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
3717 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
3720 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
3721 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
3723 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3726 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
3727 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
3729 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3732 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
3734 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
3736 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3739 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
3741 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
3743 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3746 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
3749 The sign appears before the padding.
3757 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
3759 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
3764 print N page separators.
3774 newline is ignored, white space left.
3777 newline is left, white space ignored.
3782 relative tabulation.
3788 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
3790 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
3793 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
3795 converts by `string-capitalize'.
3798 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
3801 converts by `string-upcase'.
3804 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
3806 jumps N arguments forward.
3809 jumps 1 argument backward.
3812 jumps N arguments backward.
3815 jumps to the 0th argument.
3818 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
3820 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
3821 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
3823 take argument from N.
3826 true test conditional.
3829 if-else-then conditional.
3835 default clause follows.
3838 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
3840 at most N iterations.
3843 args from next arg (a list of lists).
3846 args from the rest of arguments.
3849 args from the rest args (lists).
3860 aborts if N <= M <= K
3862 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3865 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3868 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3874 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
3876 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
3878 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
3879 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
3880 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
3881 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
3882 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
3883 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
3887 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
3891 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
3897 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
3900 Print a `#\space' character
3902 print N `#\space' characters.
3905 Print a `#\tab' character
3907 print N `#\tab' characters.
3910 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
3911 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
3912 must be a positive decimal number.
3915 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3916 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3917 be processed by `read'.
3920 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3921 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3922 be processed by `read'.
3925 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
3928 prints format version.
3931 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
3932 and format it accordingly.
3934 *** Configuration Variables
3936 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
3937 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
3938 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
3939 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
3942 format:symbol-case-conv
3943 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
3944 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
3945 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
3946 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
3947 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
3949 format:iobj-case-conv
3950 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
3951 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
3954 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
3957 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
3963 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
3964 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
3965 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
3966 `format' padding style.
3969 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
3970 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
3971 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
3972 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
3976 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
3977 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
3978 directive parameters or modifiers)).
3981 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
3982 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
3983 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
3984 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
3985 parameters or modifiers)).
3988 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
3990 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
3992 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
3993 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
3995 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
3996 string-downcase! functions.
3998 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
3999 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
4001 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
4004 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
4007 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
4008 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
4010 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
4012 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
4013 the symbol had be read by `read'.
4015 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
4016 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
4017 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
4018 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
4019 would if STRING were input.
4021 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
4023 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
4024 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
4025 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
4026 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
4029 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
4031 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
4032 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
4035 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
4037 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
4038 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
4040 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
4041 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
4043 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
4044 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
4045 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
4046 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
4048 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
4049 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
4051 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
4052 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
4053 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
4055 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
4056 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
4058 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
4059 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
4060 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
4061 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
4062 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
4064 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
4065 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
4066 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
4067 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
4068 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
4069 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
4071 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
4072 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
4073 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
4076 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
4077 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
4078 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
4079 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
4080 the following grammar:
4081 ((apples (single-char #\a))
4082 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
4083 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
4084 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
4085 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
4086 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
4087 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
4088 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
4089 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
4090 last option in its combination)
4092 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
4093 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
4094 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
4095 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
4097 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
4098 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
4099 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
4101 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
4102 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
4103 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
4105 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
4106 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
4107 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
4108 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
4109 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
4110 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
4111 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
4112 ordinary argument strings.
4114 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
4115 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
4116 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
4117 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
4119 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
4120 as a list, associated with the empty list.
4122 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
4123 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
4124 - a required option is omitted
4125 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
4126 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
4127 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
4128 - an option predicate fails
4133 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
4136 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
4137 (verbose (required? #f)
4140 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
4141 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
4142 (predicate ,string?))))
4144 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
4145 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
4147 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
4148 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
4149 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
4150 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
4153 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
4155 It will be removed in a few releases.
4157 ** New syntax: lambda*
4158 ** New syntax: define*
4159 ** New syntax: define*-public
4160 ** New syntax: defmacro*
4161 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
4162 Guile now supports optional arguments.
4164 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
4165 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
4166 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
4167 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
4168 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
4170 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
4171 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
4172 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
4174 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
4176 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
4177 and examples for `lambda*':
4180 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
4182 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
4183 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
4184 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
4185 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
4186 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
4187 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
4188 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
4189 can be checked with the bound? macro.
4191 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
4193 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
4194 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
4195 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
4196 are given as keywords are bound to values.
4198 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
4199 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
4200 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
4201 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
4202 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
4203 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
4204 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
4205 and until the procedure is called.
4207 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
4209 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
4210 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
4211 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
4212 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
4213 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
4214 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
4215 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
4216 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
4217 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
4218 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
4220 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
4221 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
4222 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
4223 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
4226 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
4228 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
4229 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
4230 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
4231 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
4233 ** New syntax: and-let*
4234 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
4236 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
4237 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
4238 (<variable> <expression>)
4241 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
4242 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
4243 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
4246 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
4247 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
4248 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
4249 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
4250 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
4251 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
4252 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
4254 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
4255 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
4256 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
4257 shadow earlier bindings.
4259 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
4261 ** New sorting functions
4263 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
4264 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
4265 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
4266 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
4268 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
4269 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
4272 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4273 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
4274 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
4276 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
4277 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
4278 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
4279 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
4281 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4282 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
4283 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
4284 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
4285 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
4288 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4289 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
4290 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
4291 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
4292 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
4293 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
4295 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
4296 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
4297 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
4299 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4300 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
4301 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
4304 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
4305 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
4306 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
4308 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
4309 Added for compatibility with scsh.
4311 ** New built-in random number support
4313 *** New function: random N [STATE]
4314 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
4315 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
4316 returned have a uniform distribution.
4318 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
4319 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
4320 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
4321 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
4322 effect of the `random' operation.
4324 *** New variable: *random-state*
4325 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
4326 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
4327 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
4328 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
4329 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
4332 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
4333 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4334 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4335 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
4336 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
4338 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
4339 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4340 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4341 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
4342 initialized using SEED.
4344 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
4345 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
4346 range between 0 and 1.
4348 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4349 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
4350 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
4351 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
4352 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
4353 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
4354 or a uniform vector of doubles.
4356 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4357 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
4358 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
4359 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
4360 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
4361 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4363 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
4364 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
4365 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
4366 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
4368 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
4369 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
4370 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
4371 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4373 *** New function: random:exp STATE
4374 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
4375 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
4377 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
4379 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
4382 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
4383 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
4386 ** New function: make-guardian
4387 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
4388 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
4389 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
4390 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
4391 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
4393 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
4394 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
4395 one object if at all.
4397 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
4398 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
4399 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
4401 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
4402 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
4403 read again in last-in first-out order.
4405 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
4406 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
4408 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
4410 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
4411 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
4412 file position is used.
4414 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
4415 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
4416 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
4418 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
4419 redefined using seek.
4421 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
4422 size is not supplied.
4424 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
4425 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
4427 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
4428 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
4430 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
4432 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
4433 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
4434 and returns the contents as a single string.
4436 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
4437 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
4438 lists in serial order.
4440 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
4441 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
4442 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
4444 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
4445 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
4446 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
4447 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
4449 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
4450 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
4451 and #f if an error occured.
4453 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
4455 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
4456 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
4457 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
4458 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
4460 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
4462 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
4465 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
4467 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
4470 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4474 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
4475 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
4477 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
4478 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
4482 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4484 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
4486 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
4487 binds a variable named NAME to it.
4489 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
4491 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
4492 might change when we get the new module system.
4494 ** The smob interface
4496 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
4497 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
4499 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
4501 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
4505 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
4506 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
4507 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
4508 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
4509 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
4510 will be freed by the default free function.
4512 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4513 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
4514 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4515 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4517 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4518 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
4519 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4520 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4522 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
4524 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
4525 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
4529 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
4530 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4531 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4533 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
4534 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
4535 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4536 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4538 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
4539 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
4540 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
4542 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
4543 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
4544 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
4545 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
4547 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
4548 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
4549 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
4551 *** scm_newptob has been removed
4555 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
4557 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
4558 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
4559 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
4561 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
4562 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
4563 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
4565 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
4566 a string port's buffer.
4568 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
4569 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
4570 function pointers which together define the current random number
4571 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
4572 number library functions.
4574 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
4577 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
4578 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
4581 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
4582 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4584 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
4585 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
4587 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
4588 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
4591 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
4592 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
4593 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
4594 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
4596 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
4597 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
4598 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
4599 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
4600 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
4601 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
4602 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
4604 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
4605 by libguile and the application.
4607 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4608 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4609 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
4610 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
4612 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
4613 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
4615 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4616 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
4617 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
4619 ** Random number library functions
4620 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
4621 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
4622 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
4624 The default random state is stored in:
4626 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
4627 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
4628 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
4633 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
4635 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
4636 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
4637 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
4638 isn't a random state.
4640 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
4641 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
4643 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
4644 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
4645 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
4646 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
4648 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4649 Return 32 random bits.
4651 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4652 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
4654 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4655 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
4657 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4658 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
4660 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
4661 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4663 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
4664 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4665 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
4669 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
4671 * Changes to the distribution
4673 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
4674 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
4675 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
4678 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
4679 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
4680 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
4682 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
4683 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
4684 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
4685 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
4688 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
4689 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
4690 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
4692 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4694 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
4696 *** Function: batch-mode?
4698 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
4701 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
4703 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
4704 case has not been implemented.
4706 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
4707 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
4708 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
4711 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
4712 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
4714 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
4716 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4718 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
4720 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
4721 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
4724 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
4725 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
4726 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
4727 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
4730 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
4732 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
4733 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
4734 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
4735 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
4736 find those libraries.
4738 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
4739 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
4742 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
4744 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
4745 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
4746 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
4747 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
4749 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
4750 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
4751 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
4755 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
4757 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
4758 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
4759 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
4762 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
4763 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
4764 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
4765 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
4767 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
4768 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
4771 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
4772 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
4773 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
4774 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
4775 compiler where to find the libraries.
4777 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
4778 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
4779 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
4781 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
4782 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
4783 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
4784 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
4785 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
4789 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4791 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
4792 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
4793 internationalization support.
4795 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
4796 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
4797 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
4798 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
4799 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
4801 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
4802 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
4803 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
4804 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
4805 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
4807 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
4808 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
4809 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
4810 any GNU mirror site.
4812 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
4814 ** New function: add-history STRING
4815 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
4816 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
4817 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
4819 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
4821 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
4822 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
4823 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
4826 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
4827 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
4828 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
4830 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
4832 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
4835 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
4836 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
4839 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
4840 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
4841 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
4842 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
4843 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
4844 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
4846 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
4847 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
4848 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
4849 of the form mentioned above.
4851 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
4852 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
4853 returned in the special `rest' list.
4855 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
4856 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
4858 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
4860 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
4862 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
4864 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
4865 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
4866 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
4867 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
4868 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
4869 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
4870 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
4871 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
4874 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
4876 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
4878 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
4879 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
4882 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
4883 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
4884 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
4888 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
4889 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
4890 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
4891 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
4892 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
4893 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
4894 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
4895 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
4898 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
4900 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
4901 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
4902 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
4904 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
4906 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
4907 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
4909 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
4910 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
4911 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
4913 Why do we have this function?
4914 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
4915 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
4916 primitive, and display it differently, and
4917 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
4918 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
4921 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
4922 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
4925 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
4926 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
4927 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
4928 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
4930 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
4931 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
4934 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
4935 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
4937 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
4939 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
4940 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
4941 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
4942 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
4943 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
4944 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
4945 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
4948 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
4950 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
4951 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
4953 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
4954 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
4955 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
4956 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
4957 properly continue the print chain.
4959 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
4960 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
4961 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
4962 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
4963 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
4964 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
4965 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
4966 print-state, it is simply ignored.
4968 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
4969 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
4970 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
4971 safest to not check for these pairs.
4973 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
4974 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
4975 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
4976 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
4978 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
4980 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
4981 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
4983 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
4985 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
4987 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
4988 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
4989 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
4991 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
4992 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
4993 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
4995 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
4996 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
4997 the following functions and macros:
4999 Function: make-fluid
5001 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
5002 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
5003 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
5004 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
5005 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
5007 Function: fluid? OBJ
5009 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
5011 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
5012 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
5014 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
5015 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
5017 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
5019 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
5020 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
5021 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
5022 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
5023 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
5024 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
5025 modified by `with-fluids*'.
5027 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
5029 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
5030 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
5031 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
5032 should evaluate to a fluid.
5034 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
5036 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
5037 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
5038 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
5039 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
5040 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
5042 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
5045 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
5047 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
5049 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
5051 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
5054 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
5055 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
5056 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
5057 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
5058 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
5061 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
5062 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
5063 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
5065 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
5066 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
5067 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
5069 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
5070 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
5071 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
5072 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
5074 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
5075 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
5076 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
5077 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
5079 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
5080 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
5081 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
5082 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
5084 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
5085 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
5086 their revealed counts set to zero.
5088 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5089 Returns an integer file descriptor.
5091 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5092 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
5094 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5095 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
5097 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5098 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
5099 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
5101 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
5102 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
5103 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
5105 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
5106 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
5107 default environment inherited by child processes.
5109 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
5110 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
5111 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
5113 The return value is unspecified.
5115 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
5116 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
5117 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
5118 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
5119 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
5121 The return value is unspecified.
5123 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
5124 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
5132 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
5133 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
5136 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
5139 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
5140 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
5141 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
5143 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
5144 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
5145 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
5146 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
5149 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
5150 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
5152 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
5153 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
5154 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
5155 the `environ' procedure.
5157 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
5158 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
5161 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
5162 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
5164 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
5165 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
5166 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
5167 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
5169 *** procedure: times
5170 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
5171 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
5172 return a selected component:
5175 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
5179 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
5182 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
5186 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
5187 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
5191 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
5192 terminated child processes.
5194 ** Removed: list-length
5195 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
5196 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
5198 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
5200 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
5202 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
5204 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
5205 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
5206 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
5207 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
5209 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
5210 extra complexity it introduces.
5212 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
5213 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
5215 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
5216 variable to any non-empty value.
5218 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
5219 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
5221 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5223 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
5224 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
5226 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
5228 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
5229 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
5231 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
5233 ** vector handling routines
5235 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
5236 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
5237 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
5238 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
5239 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
5241 ** pair and list routines
5243 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
5246 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
5248 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
5251 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5253 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
5255 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
5256 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
5257 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
5258 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
5259 site-specific initialization code.
5261 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
5262 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
5263 initialization processes.
5265 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
5266 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
5267 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
5268 initialized properly.
5270 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
5271 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
5272 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
5274 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
5275 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
5276 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
5277 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
5278 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
5280 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
5282 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
5283 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
5284 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
5285 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
5286 objects the smob refers to get marked.
5288 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
5289 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
5290 which look like this:
5293 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
5295 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
5296 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
5299 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
5300 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
5303 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
5305 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
5306 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
5307 you will need to change your functions slightly.
5309 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
5310 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
5311 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
5312 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
5313 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
5315 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
5316 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
5318 int (*free) (SCM port);
5319 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
5320 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
5321 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
5325 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
5326 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
5327 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
5329 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
5332 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
5333 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
5334 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
5336 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
5337 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
5338 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
5341 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
5345 struct timeval *timeout);
5347 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
5348 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
5349 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
5350 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
5351 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
5352 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
5354 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
5355 scm_catch_body_t body,
5357 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5360 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
5361 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
5362 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
5363 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
5364 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
5365 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
5367 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
5369 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5372 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
5373 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
5374 spawning threads from application C code.
5376 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
5377 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
5378 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
5379 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
5380 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
5381 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
5383 ** Removed functions:
5385 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
5386 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
5388 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
5390 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
5391 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
5393 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
5395 ** mbstrings are now removed
5397 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
5398 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
5400 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
5402 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
5403 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
5404 their new names and arguments:
5406 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
5407 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
5408 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
5409 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
5412 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
5414 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
5416 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
5419 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
5421 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
5422 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
5423 pass a #f arg to catch.
5425 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
5427 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
5428 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
5431 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
5432 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
5433 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
5434 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
5435 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
5436 reclaim its storage.
5438 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
5439 worrying that some other function you call will call
5440 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
5441 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
5442 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
5443 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
5446 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
5448 * Changes to the distribution
5450 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
5451 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
5454 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
5455 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
5457 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5458 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5460 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
5462 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
5463 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
5464 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
5466 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5468 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
5469 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
5470 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
5471 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
5472 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
5473 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
5475 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
5476 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
5477 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
5480 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
5481 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
5482 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
5483 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
5485 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
5486 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
5487 libraries to your link command:
5489 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
5490 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
5491 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5492 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5494 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
5495 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
5496 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
5498 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5500 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
5501 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
5504 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
5506 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
5507 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
5508 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
5509 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
5510 searched is system dependent.
5512 (dynamic-object? VAL)
5514 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
5516 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
5518 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
5519 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
5521 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5523 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
5524 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
5525 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
5526 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
5527 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
5530 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5532 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
5533 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
5534 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
5535 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
5536 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
5538 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
5540 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
5541 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
5543 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
5545 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
5546 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
5547 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
5550 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
5552 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
5553 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
5554 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
5555 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
5557 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
5558 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
5560 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
5562 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
5563 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
5565 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
5567 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
5568 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
5576 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
5578 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
5579 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
5580 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
5581 a more informative way.
5583 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
5584 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
5585 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
5586 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
5587 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
5588 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
5590 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
5591 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
5594 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
5595 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
5596 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
5599 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
5600 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
5601 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
5602 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
5603 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
5604 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
5606 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
5607 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
5608 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
5609 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
5612 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
5613 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
5614 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
5615 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
5616 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
5617 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
5619 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
5620 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
5621 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
5622 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
5623 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
5625 *** regexp functions
5627 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
5628 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
5629 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
5631 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
5632 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
5633 with SCSH regular expressions.
5635 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
5636 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
5637 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
5638 position of STR at which to begin matching.
5640 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
5641 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
5642 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
5643 `string-match' returns `#f'.
5645 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
5646 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
5647 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
5648 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
5649 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
5650 match strings against the compiled regexp.
5652 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
5653 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
5654 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
5655 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
5656 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
5658 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5660 **** Constant: regexp/extended
5661 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
5662 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
5663 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
5665 **** Constant: regexp/icase
5666 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
5667 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
5669 **** Constant: regexp/newline
5670 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
5672 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
5675 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
5676 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5677 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
5679 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
5680 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5681 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
5683 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
5684 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
5685 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
5686 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
5687 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
5690 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5692 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
5693 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
5694 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
5695 used when different portions of a string are passed to
5696 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
5697 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
5699 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
5700 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
5701 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
5703 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
5704 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
5707 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
5708 and replace them with the contents of another string.
5710 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
5711 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
5712 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
5713 may be one of the following arguments:
5715 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
5717 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
5719 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
5720 the regexp match is written.
5722 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
5723 following the regexp match is written.
5725 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
5726 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
5729 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
5730 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
5731 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
5732 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
5733 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
5734 which should be matched against this regular expression.
5736 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
5739 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
5740 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
5741 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
5742 written out to PORT.
5744 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
5745 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
5746 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
5747 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
5748 will return after processing a single match.
5750 *** Match Structures
5752 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
5753 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
5754 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
5755 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
5756 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
5757 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
5760 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
5761 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
5762 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
5763 information about the original target string that was matched against a
5764 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
5766 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
5767 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
5768 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
5770 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
5771 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
5772 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
5773 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
5774 number N did not match, return `#f'.
5776 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
5777 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
5779 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
5780 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
5782 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
5783 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
5785 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
5786 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
5788 **** Function: match:count MATCH
5789 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
5790 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
5791 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
5793 **** Function: match:string MATCH
5794 Return the original TARGET string.
5796 *** Backslash Escapes
5798 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
5799 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
5800 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
5801 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
5802 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
5803 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
5805 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
5806 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
5807 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
5808 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
5809 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
5810 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
5811 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
5812 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
5814 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
5815 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
5816 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
5817 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
5818 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
5819 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
5820 each match a single backslash in the target string.
5822 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
5823 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
5824 return the resulting string.
5826 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
5827 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
5828 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
5829 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
5830 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
5831 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
5832 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
5833 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
5834 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
5835 translated to the single character `*'.
5837 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
5838 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
5839 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
5840 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
5841 consecutive backslashes:
5843 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
5845 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
5846 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
5847 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
5849 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
5850 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
5851 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
5852 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
5853 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
5854 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
5856 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
5858 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
5859 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
5860 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
5861 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
5862 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
5863 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
5864 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
5865 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
5866 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
5867 cumbersome escape syntax.
5869 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5871 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5873 * Changes to system call interfaces:
5875 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
5878 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
5880 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
5882 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
5885 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
5886 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
5887 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
5888 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
5889 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
5891 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
5892 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
5893 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
5894 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
5895 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
5896 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
5897 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
5900 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
5901 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
5902 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
5905 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
5906 `force-output' on every port open for output.
5908 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
5909 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
5910 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
5911 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
5912 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
5913 installed, you can say:
5915 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
5918 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5920 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
5921 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
5922 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
5923 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
5924 new dynamic roots and threads.
5927 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
5929 * Changes to the distribution.
5931 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
5933 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
5934 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
5935 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
5936 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
5937 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
5938 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
5939 programming language. These are packaged together because the
5940 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
5942 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
5945 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
5946 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
5951 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5953 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
5954 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
5956 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
5957 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
5958 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
5959 the (command-line) function.
5960 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
5961 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
5962 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
5964 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
5965 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
5966 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
5967 command line arguments
5968 -ds do -s script at this point
5969 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
5970 -h, --help display this help and exit
5971 -v, --version display version information and exit
5972 \ read arguments from following script lines
5974 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
5975 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
5977 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5980 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5984 (main (command-line))
5986 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
5988 ekko a speckled gecko
5990 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
5991 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
5992 following list of command-line arguments:
5994 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
5996 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
5997 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
5998 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
5999 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
6000 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
6002 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
6004 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
6006 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
6007 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
6010 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
6011 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
6012 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
6013 SCSH) for circumventing them.
6015 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
6016 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
6017 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
6018 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
6020 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
6024 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
6028 If the user invokes this script as follows:
6030 ekko a speckled gecko
6032 Unix expands this into
6034 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
6036 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
6037 read from the second line of the script, producing:
6039 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6041 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
6042 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
6044 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
6045 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
6046 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
6047 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
6048 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
6049 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
6050 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
6051 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
6052 it only terminates the argument list.)
6053 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
6054 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
6055 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
6056 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
6057 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
6058 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
6059 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
6060 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
6062 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
6064 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
6065 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
6066 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
6067 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
6068 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
6070 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
6071 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
6072 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
6074 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
6076 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
6077 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
6078 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
6079 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
6082 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
6083 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
6084 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
6086 * Changes to Scheme functions
6088 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
6089 and disabled by default.
6091 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
6092 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
6093 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
6094 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
6096 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
6098 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
6100 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
6101 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
6103 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
6104 (read-set! keywords #f)
6106 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
6107 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
6108 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
6111 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
6112 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
6113 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
6116 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
6117 support for Scheme functions.
6119 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
6120 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
6121 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
6122 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
6125 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
6126 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
6127 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
6130 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
6131 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
6132 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
6135 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
6136 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
6137 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
6138 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
6139 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
6140 display the result as a prompt.
6141 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
6143 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
6144 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
6145 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
6148 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
6149 procedure of zero arguments.
6151 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
6152 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
6153 argument is bound in the current module.
6155 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
6156 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
6157 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
6158 public bindings into the current module.
6160 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
6161 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
6163 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
6164 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
6166 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
6167 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
6169 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
6170 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
6172 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
6173 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
6175 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
6176 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
6177 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
6178 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
6179 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
6181 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
6182 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
6183 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
6184 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
6186 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
6189 ** Changes to I/O functions
6191 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
6192 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
6193 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
6195 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
6196 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
6197 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
6199 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
6200 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
6202 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
6203 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
6204 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
6205 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
6207 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
6209 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
6210 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
6212 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
6213 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
6214 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
6215 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
6216 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
6219 'trim omit delimiter from result
6220 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
6221 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
6222 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
6224 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
6226 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
6227 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
6229 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
6230 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
6231 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
6232 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
6233 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
6235 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
6236 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
6237 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
6239 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
6240 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
6241 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
6242 above, and defaults to 'peek.
6244 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
6245 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6247 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
6248 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
6250 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
6252 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
6253 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
6254 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
6255 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
6256 a delimiting character.
6257 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
6259 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
6260 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
6261 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
6262 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
6263 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
6264 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
6266 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
6267 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6269 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
6270 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
6271 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
6273 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
6274 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
6275 the array to read and write.
6277 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
6278 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
6281 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
6283 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
6286 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
6287 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
6288 Values for COMMAND are:
6290 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
6291 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
6292 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
6293 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
6294 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
6295 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
6296 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
6297 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
6299 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
6301 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
6302 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
6303 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
6304 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
6305 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
6306 corresponding return set will be the same.
6308 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
6311 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
6312 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
6313 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
6314 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
6315 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
6316 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
6317 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
6318 special file being created.
6320 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
6321 clashing with various SCSH forks.
6323 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
6324 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
6325 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
6326 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
6327 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
6328 and originating address.
6330 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
6331 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
6332 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
6334 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
6337 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
6338 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
6341 (status:exit-val STATUS)
6342 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
6343 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
6344 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
6345 this function returns #f.
6347 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
6348 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
6349 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
6352 (status:term-sig STATUS)
6353 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
6354 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
6357 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
6358 a valid STATUS value.
6360 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
6362 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
6363 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
6365 Component Accessor Setter
6366 ========================= ============ ============
6367 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
6368 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
6369 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
6370 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
6371 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
6372 year tm:year set-tm:year
6373 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
6374 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
6375 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
6376 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
6377 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
6379 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
6380 describing the host system:
6383 ============================================== ================
6384 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
6385 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
6386 release level of the operating system utsname:release
6387 version level of the operating system utsname:version
6388 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
6390 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
6391 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
6392 system's user database:
6395 ====================== =================
6396 user name passwd:name
6397 user password passwd:passwd
6400 real name passwd:gecos
6401 home directory passwd:dir
6402 shell program passwd:shell
6404 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
6405 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
6406 system's group database:
6409 ======================= ============
6410 group name group:name
6411 group password group:passwd
6413 group members group:mem
6415 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
6416 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
6420 ========================= ===============
6421 official name of host hostent:name
6422 alias list hostent:aliases
6423 host address type hostent:addrtype
6424 length of address hostent:length
6425 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
6427 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
6428 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
6432 ========================= ===============
6433 official name of net netent:name
6434 alias list netent:aliases
6435 net number type netent:addrtype
6436 net number netent:net
6438 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
6439 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
6443 ========================= ===============
6444 official protocol name protoent:name
6445 alias list protoent:aliases
6446 protocol number protoent:proto
6448 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
6449 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
6453 ========================= ===============
6454 official service name servent:name
6455 alias list servent:aliases
6456 port number servent:port
6457 protocol to use servent:proto
6459 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
6460 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
6463 ======================================== ===============
6464 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
6465 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
6466 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
6467 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
6469 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
6470 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
6471 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
6473 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
6474 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
6476 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
6477 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
6479 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
6480 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
6482 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
6484 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
6486 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
6487 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
6488 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
6490 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
6491 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
6492 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
6493 return the remaining characters as a string.
6495 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
6496 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
6497 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
6499 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
6501 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6503 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
6506 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
6509 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
6510 and returns the array
6512 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
6513 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
6514 the user to interpret the data both ways.
6516 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6518 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
6519 symbol's value from C code:
6521 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
6522 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
6523 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
6524 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
6526 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
6527 without assigning them a value.
6529 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
6530 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
6531 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
6533 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
6534 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
6535 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
6537 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
6538 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
6540 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
6541 doesn't actually care about that.
6543 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
6544 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
6545 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
6547 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
6548 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
6549 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
6550 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
6551 which we have just created and initialized.
6553 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
6554 should one occur. We call it like this:
6555 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
6557 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
6558 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
6559 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
6560 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
6561 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
6562 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
6565 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
6566 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
6567 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
6568 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
6569 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
6570 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
6571 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
6574 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
6575 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
6576 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
6577 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
6578 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
6581 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
6582 scm_internal_catch, except:
6584 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
6585 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
6586 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
6587 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
6590 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
6591 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
6592 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
6594 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
6595 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
6596 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
6597 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
6600 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
6601 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
6602 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
6604 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
6605 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
6606 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
6607 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
6608 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
6610 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
6611 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
6612 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
6614 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
6615 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
6616 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
6618 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
6619 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
6621 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
6622 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
6623 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
6626 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
6627 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
6628 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
6629 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
6630 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
6631 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
6632 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
6635 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
6636 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
6638 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
6639 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
6640 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
6641 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
6642 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
6645 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
6646 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
6648 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
6649 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
6652 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
6653 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
6655 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6658 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
6659 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
6660 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
6661 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
6662 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
6663 given the following arguments:
6665 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6667 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
6669 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
6671 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6674 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
6675 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
6676 command-line arguments.
6678 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
6679 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
6680 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
6681 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
6682 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
6683 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
6686 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6689 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
6690 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
6692 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
6693 rearranged slightly. They are now:
6695 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6696 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6697 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
6698 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
6700 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6701 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6703 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6704 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
6705 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6706 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
6708 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6709 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6711 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
6712 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
6714 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
6716 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
6717 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
6718 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
6721 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
6722 returns a port instead of an FD object.
6724 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
6725 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
6730 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
6733 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
6735 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
6736 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
6737 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
6738 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
6740 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
6742 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
6744 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
6745 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
6746 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
6747 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
6748 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
6749 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
6750 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
6751 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
6752 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
6753 for more information.
6755 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
6756 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
6758 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
6759 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
6760 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
6761 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
6762 following two lines at the top of the file:
6764 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6767 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
6768 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
6769 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
6771 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
6773 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6775 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
6778 (display (car args))
6779 (if (pair? (cdr args))
6781 (loop (cdr args)))))
6784 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
6785 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
6786 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
6787 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
6788 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
6789 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
6793 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
6796 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
6799 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
6801 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
6802 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
6803 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
6804 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
6805 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
6808 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
6809 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
6810 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
6811 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
6812 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
6815 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
6818 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
6819 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
6820 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
6823 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
6824 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
6825 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
6827 to see a backtrace, and
6828 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
6829 to see them by default.
6833 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
6835 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
6837 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
6838 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
6841 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
6842 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
6843 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
6844 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
6847 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
6848 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
6849 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
6850 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
6851 functions which inspired them.
6853 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
6854 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
6858 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
6860 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
6862 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
6863 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
6866 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
6867 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
6868 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
6870 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
6871 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
6872 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
6873 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
6874 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
6876 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
6878 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
6879 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
6880 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
6883 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
6886 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
6888 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
6889 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
6890 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
6891 above should serve their purposes.
6893 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
6894 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
6895 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
6896 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
6898 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
6901 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
6902 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
6903 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
6904 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
6906 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
6907 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
6908 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
6909 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
6911 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
6912 for the `read' function.
6915 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
6916 to that of `integer?'.
6918 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
6919 use the R4RS names for these functions.
6921 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
6922 it simply returns the object's property list.
6924 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
6925 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
6926 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
6927 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
6929 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
6931 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
6934 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
6936 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
6937 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
6939 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
6941 void (*main_func) (),
6944 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
6945 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
6946 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
6947 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
6948 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
6950 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
6951 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
6952 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
6953 know which arguments have been processed.
6955 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
6956 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
6957 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
6958 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
6959 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
6961 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
6962 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
6963 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
6964 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
6965 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
6966 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
6967 people from making that mistake.
6969 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
6970 convenient ways to override these when desired.
6972 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
6974 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
6978 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
6981 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
6982 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
6983 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
6984 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
6987 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
6988 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
6989 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
6990 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
6993 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
6994 have been added to the Guile library.
6996 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
6997 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
6998 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
7001 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
7002 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
7003 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
7005 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
7006 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
7007 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
7008 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
7009 argument from the list.
7012 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
7015 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
7016 null-terminated string, and returns it.
7018 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
7019 to a Scheme port object.
7021 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
7022 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
7027 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
7029 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
7030 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
7031 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
7032 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
7033 code as a special datatype.
7035 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
7036 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
7037 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
7038 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
7039 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
7042 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
7043 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
7044 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
7045 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
7046 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
7048 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
7051 Copyright information:
7053 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
7055 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
7056 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
7057 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
7058 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
7060 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
7061 of this document, or of portions of it,
7062 under the above conditions, provided also that they
7063 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
7068 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"