1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
8 (During the 1.9 series, we will keep an incremental NEWS for the latest
9 prerelease, and a full NEWS corresponding to 1.8 -> 2.0.)
11 Changes in 1.9.8 (since the 1.9.7 prerelease):
13 ** Struct optimizations
15 Structs underly many types in Guile, including records and objects. This
16 release speeds up struct access and creation.
18 ** Add libffi dependency
20 Libffi is now required, to build the foreign function interface. See
21 http://sourceware.org/libffi/, for more information on libffi.
23 We are not aware of a platform that Guile runs on for which libffi is
26 ** Foreign function interface
28 This release comes with a new `(system foreign)' module. Currently it
29 provides a low level "foreign function interface" (FFI), which allows
30 users to write Scheme code to invoke C code, without writing a single
33 The `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-func' procedures, which have been
34 available for a long time, can be used to get the address of a C
35 function as a "foreign" object at the Scheme level; using libffi, Guile
36 can construct calls to these functions.
38 The arguments to a C function may be integers, floating point numbers,
39 pointers, and structs. From Scheme they are all represented as foreign
40 objects. Foreign objects can be converted back and forth to/from a
41 bytevector. They can have an associated finalizer (e.g., a procedure
42 that will reclaim any associated resources when the object becomes
43 unreachable); alternatively, they can be finalized using a guardian.
45 The `(system foreign)' API is currently low-level and possibly
46 inconvenient. It will be extended to provide higher-level constructs.
48 ** Incompatible changes to the foreign value interface introduced in 1.9.7
50 The API in <libguile/foreign.h> changed since 1.9.7. C extensions need
53 ** `dynamic-wind' compilation
55 `dynamic-wind' now has special support from the compiler and VM. The
56 compiler is able to inline the body of a `dynamic-wind', making it more
57 efficient. The run-time support is provided by the `wind' and `unwind'
60 ** New module: `(ice-9 vlist)'
62 This module provides an implementation of Bagwell's VLists and
63 VList-based hash lists ("VHashes"). VLists are a list data structure
64 that provides constant-time random access and length computation
65 logarithmic in the number of elements. VLists also use less storage
66 space than standard Scheme linked lists.
68 VHashes are a functional dictionary type similar to association lists.
69 However, unlike association lists, accessing a value given its key is
70 typically a constant-time operation. VHashes are now used in a few
71 places of the compiler.
73 ** New procedures: `getaddrinfo' and family
75 Bindings for the POSIX getaddrinfo(3) host name and service lookup
76 function are available. This function is now recommended over
77 `gethostname' and friends as it's more expressive and can return a
78 sorted list of addresses, as opposed to a single address.
82 The tutorial was removed. It was incomplete, outdated, and contained C
83 examples that were no longer valid. The reference manual, on the other
84 hand, contains up-to-date examples and documentation.
86 ** And of course, the usual collection of bugfixes
88 Interested users should see the ChangeLog for more information.
92 Changes in 1.9.x (since the 1.8.x series):
94 * New modules (see the manual for details)
96 ** `(srfi srfi-18)', more sophisticated multithreading support
97 ** `(ice-9 i18n)', internationalization support
98 ** `(rnrs bytevector)', the R6RS bytevector API
99 ** `(rnrs io ports)', a subset of the R6RS I/O port API
100 ** `(system xref)', a cross-referencing facility (FIXME undocumented)
101 ** `(ice-9 vlist)', lists with constant-time random access; hash lists
102 ** `(system foreign)', foreign function interface (FIXME: undocumented)
104 ** Imported statprof, SSAX, and texinfo modules from Guile-Lib
106 The statprof statistical profiler, the SSAX XML toolkit, and the texinfo
107 toolkit from Guile-Lib have been imported into Guile proper. See
108 "Standard Library" in the manual for more details.
110 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
112 ** Guile now can compile Scheme to bytecode for a custom virtual machine.
114 Compiled code loads much faster than Scheme source code, and runs around
115 3 or 4 times as fast, generating much less garbage in the process.
117 ** The stack limit is now initialized from the environment.
119 If getrlimit(2) is available and a stack limit is set, Guile will set
120 its stack limit to 80% of the rlimit. Otherwise the limit is 160000
121 words, a four-fold increase from the earlier default limit.
123 ** New environment variables: GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH,
124 GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH
126 GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is for compiled files what GUILE_LOAD_PATH is
127 for source files. It is a different path, however, because compiled
128 files are architecture-specific. GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is like
131 ** New read-eval-print loop (REPL) implementation
133 Running Guile with no arguments drops the user into the new REPL. While
134 it is self-documenting to an extent, the new REPL has not yet been
135 documented in the manual. This will be fixed before 2.0.
137 ** New reader options: `square-brackets' and `r6rs-hex-escapes'
139 The reader supports a new option (changeable via `read-options'),
140 `square-brackets', which instructs it to interpret square brackets as
141 parenthesis. This option is on by default.
143 When the new `r6rs-hex-escapes' reader option is enabled, the reader
144 will recognize string escape sequences as defined in R6RS.
146 ** Function profiling and tracing at the REPL
148 The `,profile FORM' REPL meta-command can now be used to statistically
149 profile execution of a form, to see which functions are taking the most
150 time. See `,help profile' for more information.
152 Similarly, `,trace FORM' traces all function applications that occur
153 during the execution of `FORM'. See `,help trace' for more information.
157 By default, if an exception is raised at the REPL and not caught by user
158 code, Guile will drop the user into a debugger. The user may request a
159 backtrace, inspect frames, or continue raising the exception. Full
160 documentation is available from within the debugger.
162 ** New `guile-tools' commands: `compile', `disassemble'
164 Pass the `--help' command-line option to these commands for more
167 ** Guile now adds its install prefix to the LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH
169 Users may now install Guile to nonstandard prefixes and just run
170 `/path/to/bin/guile', instead of also having to set LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH to
171 include `/path/to/lib'.
173 ** Guile's Emacs integration is now more keyboard-friendly
175 Backtraces may now be disclosed with the keyboard in addition to the
178 ** Load path change: search in version-specific paths before site paths
180 When looking for a module, Guile now searches first in Guile's
181 version-specific path (the library path), *then* in the site dir. This
182 allows Guile's copy of SSAX to override any Guile-Lib copy the user has
183 installed. Also it should cut the number of `stat' system calls by half,
187 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
189 ** New implementation of `primitive-eval'
191 Guile's `primitive-eval' is now implemented in Scheme. Actually there is
192 still a C evaluator, used when building a fresh Guile to interpret the
193 compiler, so we can compile eval.scm. Thereafter all calls to
194 primitive-eval are implemented by VM-compiled code.
196 This allows all of Guile's procedures, be they interpreted or compiled,
197 to execute on the same stack, unifying multiple-value return semantics,
198 providing for proper tail recursion between interpreted and compiled
199 code, and simplifying debugging.
201 As part of this change, the evaluator no longer mutates the internal
202 representation of the code being evaluated in a thread-unsafe manner.
204 There are two negative aspects of this change, however. First, Guile
205 takes a lot longer to compile now. Also, there is less debugging
206 information available for debugging interpreted code. We hope to improve
207 both of these situations.
209 There are many changes to the internal C evalator interface, but all
210 public interfaces should be the same. See the ChangeLog for details. If
211 we have inadvertantly changed an interface that you were using, please
212 contact bug-guile@gnu.org.
214 ** Procedure removed: `the-environment'
216 This procedure was part of the interpreter's execution model, and does
217 not apply to the compiler.
219 ** No more `local-eval'
221 `local-eval' used to exist so that one could evaluate code in the
222 lexical context of a function. Since there is no way to get the lexical
223 environment any more, as that concept has no meaning for the compiler,
224 and a different meaning for the interpreter, we have removed the
227 If you think you need `local-eval', you should probably implement your
228 own metacircular evaluator. It will probably be as fast as Guile's
231 ** Files loaded with `primitive-load-path' will now be compiled
234 If a compiled .go file corresponding to a .scm file is not found or is
235 not fresh, the .scm file will be compiled on the fly, and the resulting
236 .go file stored away. An advisory note will be printed on the console.
238 Note that this mechanism depends on preservation of the .scm and .go
239 modification times; if the .scm or .go files are moved after
240 installation, care should be taken to preserve their original
243 Autocompiled files will be stored in the $XDG_CACHE_HOME/guile/ccache
244 directory, where $XDG_CACHE_HOME defaults to ~/.cache. This directory
245 will be created if needed.
247 To inhibit autocompilation, set the GUILE_AUTO_COMPILE environment
248 variable to 0, or pass --no-autocompile on the Guile command line.
250 Note that there is currently a bug here: automatic compilation will
251 sometimes be attempted when it shouldn't.
253 For example, the old (lang elisp) modules are meant to be interpreted,
254 not compiled. This bug will be fixed before 2.0. FIXME 2.0: Should say
255 something here about module-transformer called for compile.
257 ** Files loaded with `load' will now be compiled automatically.
259 As with files loaded via `primitive-load-path', `load' will also compile
260 its target if autocompilation is enabled, and a fresh compiled file is
263 There are two points of difference to note, however. First, `load' does
264 not search `GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH' for the file; it only looks in the
265 autocompilation directory, normally a subdirectory of ~/.cache/guile.
267 Secondly, autocompilation also applies to files loaded via the -l
268 command-line argument -- so the user may experience a slight slowdown
269 the first time they run a Guile script, as the script is autocompiled.
271 ** New POSIX procedures: `getrlimit' and `setrlimit'
273 Note however that the interface of these functions is likely to change
274 in the next prerelease.
276 ** New POSIX procedure: `getsid'
278 Scheme binding for the `getsid' C library call.
280 ** New POSIX procedure: `getaddrinfo'
282 Scheme binding for the `getaddrinfo' C library function.
284 ** New procedure in `(oops goops)': `method-formals'
286 ** BUG: (procedure-property func 'arity) does not work on compiled
289 This will be fixed one way or another before 2.0.
291 ** New procedures in (ice-9 session): `add-value-help-handler!',
292 `remove-value-help-handler!', `add-name-help-handler!'
293 `remove-name-help-handler!', `procedure-arguments',
295 The value and name help handlers provide some minimal extensibility to
296 the help interface. Guile-lib's `(texinfo reflection)' uses them, for
297 example, to make stexinfo help documentation available. See those
298 procedures' docstrings for more information.
300 `procedure-arguments' describes the arguments that a procedure can take,
301 combining arity and formals. For example:
303 (procedure-arguments resolve-interface)
304 => ((required . (name)) (rest . args))
306 Additionally, `module-commentary' is now publically exported from
309 ** Removed: `procedure->memoizing-macro', `procedure->syntax'
311 These procedures created primitive fexprs for the old evaluator, and are
312 no longer supported. If you feel that you need these functions, you
313 probably need to write your own metacircular evaluator (which will
314 probably be as fast as Guile's, anyway).
316 ** New language: ECMAScript
318 Guile now ships with one other high-level language supported,
319 ECMAScript. The goal is to support all of version 3.1 of the standard,
320 but not all of the libraries are there yet. This support is not yet
321 documented; ask on the mailing list if you are interested.
323 ** New language: Brainfuck
325 Brainfuck is a toy language that closely models Turing machines. Guile's
326 brainfuck compiler is meant to be an example of implementing other
327 languages. See the manual for details, or
328 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck for more information about the
329 Brainfuck language itself.
331 ** New language: Elisp
333 Guile now has an experimental Emacs Lisp compiler and runtime. You can
334 now switch to Elisp at the repl: `,language elisp'. All kudos to Daniel
335 Kraft, and all bugs to bug-guile@gnu.org.
337 ** Defmacros may now have docstrings.
339 Indeed, any macro may have a docstring. `object-documentation' from
340 `(ice-9 documentation)' may be used to retrieve the docstring, once you
341 have a macro value -- but see the above note about first-class macros.
342 Docstrings are associated with the syntax transformer procedures.
344 ** The psyntax expander now knows how to interpret the @ and @@ special
347 ** The psyntax expander is now hygienic with respect to modules.
349 Free variables in a macro are scoped in the module that the macro was
350 defined in, not in the module the macro is used in. For example, code
353 (define-module (foo) #:export (bar))
354 (define (helper x) ...)
356 (syntax-rules () ((_ x) (helper x))))
358 (define-module (baz) #:use-module (foo))
361 It used to be you had to export `helper' from `(foo)' as well.
362 Thankfully, this has been fixed.
364 ** Complete support for version information in Guile's `module' form
366 Guile modules now have a `#:version' field. They may be loaded by
367 version as well. See "R6RS Version References", "General Information
368 about Modules", "Using Guile Modules", and "Creating Guile Modules" in
369 the manual for more information.
371 ** Support for renaming bindings on module export
373 Wherever Guile accepts a symbol as an argument to specify a binding to
374 export, it now also accepts a pair of symbols, indicating that a binding
375 should be renamed on export. See "Creating Guile Modules" in the manual
376 for more information.
378 ** `eval-case' has been deprecated, and replaced by `eval-when'.
380 The semantics of `eval-when' are easier to understand. It is still
381 missing documentation, however.
383 ** Guile is now more strict about prohibiting definitions in expression
386 Although previous versions of Guile accepted it, the following
387 expression is not valid, in R5RS or R6RS:
389 (if test (define foo 'bar) (define foo 'baz))
391 In this specific case, it would be better to do:
393 (define foo (if test 'bar 'baz))
395 It is certainly possible to circumvent this resriction with e.g.
396 `(module-define! (current-module) 'foo 'baz)'. We would appreciate
397 feedback about this change (a consequence of using psyntax as the
398 default expander), and may choose to revisit this situation before 2.0
399 in response to user feedback.
401 ** Defmacros must now produce valid Scheme expressions.
403 It used to be that defmacros could unquote in Scheme values, as a way of
404 supporting partial evaluation, and avoiding some hygiene issues. For
407 (define (helper x) ...)
408 (define-macro (foo bar)
411 Assuming this macro is in the `(baz)' module, the direct translation of
414 (define (helper x) ...)
415 (define-macro (foo bar)
416 `((@@ (baz) helper) ,bar))
418 Of course, one could just use a hygienic macro instead:
422 ((_ bar) (helper bar))))
424 ** Guile's psyntax now supports docstrings and internal definitions.
426 The following Scheme is not strictly legal:
433 However its intent is fairly clear. Guile interprets "bar" to be the
434 docstring of `foo', and the definition of `baz' is still in definition
437 ** Macros need to be defined before their first use.
439 It used to be that with lazy memoization, this might work:
443 (define-macro (ref x) x)
446 But now, the body of `foo' is interpreted to mean a call to the toplevel
447 `ref' function, instead of a macro expansion. The solution is to define
448 macros before code that uses them.
450 ** Functions needed by macros at expand-time need to be present at
453 For example, this code will work at the REPL:
455 (define (double-helper x) (* x x))
456 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
457 (double-literal 2) => 4
459 But it will not work when a file is compiled, because the definition of
460 `double-helper' is not present at expand-time. The solution is to wrap
461 the definition of `double-helper' in `eval-when':
463 (eval-when (load compile eval)
464 (define (double-helper x) (* x x)))
465 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
466 (double-literal 2) => 4
468 See the (currently missing) documentation for eval-when for more
471 ** New variable, %pre-modules-transformer
473 Need to document this one some more.
475 ** Temporarily removed functions: `macroexpand', `macroexpand-1'
477 `macroexpand' will be added back before 2.0. It is unclear how to
478 implement `macroexpand-1' with syntax-case, though PLT Scheme does prove
481 ** New reader macros: #' #` #, #,@
483 These macros translate, respectively, to `syntax', `quasisyntax',
484 `unsyntax', and `unsyntax-splicing'. See the R6RS for more information.
485 These reader macros may be overridden by `read-hash-extend'.
487 ** Incompatible change to #'
489 Guile did have a #' hash-extension, by default, which just returned the
490 subsequent datum: #'foo => foo. In the unlikely event that anyone
491 actually used this, this behavior may be reinstated via the
492 `read-hash-extend' mechanism.
494 ** Scheme expresssions may be commented out with #;
496 #; comments out an entire expression. See SRFI-62 or the R6RS for more
499 ** `make-stack' with a tail-called procedural narrowing argument no longer
500 works (with compiled procedures)
502 It used to be the case that a captured stack could be narrowed to select
503 calls only up to or from a certain procedure, even if that procedure
504 already tail-called another procedure. This was because the debug
505 information from the original procedure was kept on the stack.
507 Now with the new compiler, the stack only contains active frames from
508 the current continuation. A narrow to a procedure that is not in the
509 stack will result in an empty stack. To fix this, narrow to a procedure
510 that is active in the current continuation, or narrow to a specific
511 number of stack frames.
513 ** backtraces through compiled procedures only show procedures that are
514 active in the current continuation
516 Similarly to the previous issue, backtraces in compiled code may be
517 different from backtraces in interpreted code. There are no semantic
518 differences, however. Please mail bug-guile@gnu.org if you see any
519 deficiencies with Guile's backtraces.
521 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case macros now propagate source information
522 through to the expanded code
524 This should result in better backtraces.
526 ** The currying behavior of `define' has been removed.
528 Before, `(define ((f a) b) (* a b))' would translate to
530 (define f (lambda (a) (lambda (b) (* a b))))
532 Now a syntax error is signaled, as this syntax is not supported by
533 default. If there is sufficient demand, this syntax can be supported
536 ** New procedure, `define!'
538 `define!' is a procedure that takes two arguments, a symbol and a value,
539 and binds the value to the symbol in the current module. It's useful to
540 programmatically make definitions in the current module, and is slightly
541 less verbose than `module-define!'.
543 ** All modules have names now
545 Before, you could have anonymous modules: modules without names. Now,
546 because of hygiene and macros, all modules have names. If a module was
547 created without a name, the first time `module-name' is called on it, a
548 fresh name will be lazily generated for it.
550 ** Many syntax errors have different texts now
552 Syntax errors still throw to the `syntax-error' key, but the arguments
553 are often different now. Perhaps in the future, Guile will switch to
554 using standard SRFI-35 conditions.
556 ** Returning multiple values to compiled code will silently truncate the
557 values to the expected number
559 For example, the interpreter would raise an error evaluating the form,
560 `(+ (values 1 2) (values 3 4))', because it would see the operands as
561 being two compound "values" objects, to which `+' does not apply.
563 The compiler, on the other hand, receives multiple values on the stack,
564 not as a compound object. Given that it must check the number of values
565 anyway, if too many values are provided for a continuation, it chooses
566 to truncate those values, effectively evaluating `(+ 1 3)' instead.
568 The idea is that the semantics that the compiler implements is more
569 intuitive, and the use of the interpreter will fade out with time.
570 This behavior is allowed both by the R5RS and the R6RS.
572 ** Multiple values in compiled code are not represented by compound
575 This change may manifest itself in the following situation:
577 (let ((val (foo))) (do-something) val)
579 In the interpreter, if `foo' returns multiple values, multiple values
580 are produced from the `let' expression. In the compiler, those values
581 are truncated to the first value, and that first value is returned. In
582 the compiler, if `foo' returns no values, an error will be raised, while
583 the interpreter would proceed.
585 Both of these behaviors are allowed by R5RS and R6RS. The compiler's
586 behavior is more correct, however. If you wish to preserve a potentially
587 multiply-valued return, you will need to set up a multiple-value
588 continuation, using `call-with-values'.
590 ** Defmacros are now implemented in terms of syntax-case.
592 The practical ramification of this is that the `defmacro?' predicate has
593 been removed, along with `defmacro-transformer', `macro-table',
594 `xformer-table', `assert-defmacro?!', `set-defmacro-transformer!' and
595 `defmacro:transformer'. This is because defmacros are simply macros. If
596 any of these procedures provided useful facilities to you, we encourage
597 you to contact the Guile developers.
599 ** psyntax is now the default expander
601 Scheme code is now expanded by default by the psyntax hygienic macro
602 expander. Expansion is performed completely before compilation or
605 Notably, syntax errors will be signalled before interpretation begins.
606 In the past, many syntax errors were only detected at runtime if the
607 code in question was memoized.
609 As part of its expansion, psyntax renames all lexically-bound
610 identifiers. Original identifier names are preserved and given to the
611 compiler, but the interpreter will see the renamed variables, e.g.,
612 `x432' instead of `x'.
614 Note that the psyntax that Guile uses is a fork, as Guile already had
615 modules before incompatible modules were added to psyntax -- about 10
616 years ago! Thus there are surely a number of bugs that have been fixed
617 in psyntax since then. If you find one, please notify bug-guile@gnu.org.
619 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case are available by default.
621 There is no longer any need to import the `(ice-9 syncase)' module
622 (which is now deprecated). The expander may be invoked directly via
623 `sc-expand', though it is normally searched for via the current module
626 Also, the helper routines for syntax-case are available in the default
627 environment as well: `syntax->datum', `datum->syntax',
628 `bound-identifier=?', `free-identifier=?', `generate-temporaries',
629 `identifier?', and `syntax-violation'. See the R6RS for documentation.
631 ** Tail patterns in syntax-case
633 Guile has pulled in some more recent changes from the psyntax portable
634 syntax expander, to implement support for "tail patterns". Such patterns
635 are supported by syntax-rules and syntax-case. This allows a syntax-case
636 match clause to have ellipses, then a pattern at the end. For example:
640 ((_ val match-clause ... (else e e* ...))
643 Note how there is MATCH-CLAUSE, which is ellipsized, then there is a
644 tail pattern for the else clause. Thanks to Andreas Rottmann for the
645 patch, and Kent Dybvig for the code.
647 ** Lexical bindings introduced by hygienic macros may not be referenced
648 by nonhygienic macros.
650 If a lexical binding is introduced by a hygienic macro, it may not be
651 referenced by a nonhygienic macro. For example, this works:
654 (define-macro (bind-x val body)
655 `(let ((x ,val)) ,body))
656 (define-macro (ref x)
663 (define-syntax bind-x
665 ((_ val body) (let ((x val)) body))))
666 (define-macro (ref x)
670 It is not normal to run into this situation with existing code. However,
671 as code is ported over from defmacros to syntax-case, it is possible to
672 run into situations like this. In the future, Guile will probably port
673 its `while' macro to syntax-case, which makes this issue one to know
676 ** Macros may no longer be referenced as first-class values.
678 In the past, you could evaluate e.g. `if', and get its macro value. Now,
679 expanding this form raises a syntax error.
681 Macros still /exist/ as first-class values, but they must be
682 /referenced/ via the module system, e.g. `(module-ref (current-module)
685 This decision may be revisited before the 2.0 release. Feedback welcome
686 to guile-devel@gnu.org (subscription required) or bug-guile@gnu.org (no
687 subscription required).
689 ** `case-lambda' is now available in the default environment.
691 The binding in the default environment is equivalent to the one from the
692 `(srfi srfi-16)' module. Use the srfi-16 module explicitly if you wish
693 to maintain compatibility with Guile 1.8 and earlier.
695 ** Compiled procedures may now have more than one arity.
697 This can be the case, for example, in case-lambda procedures. The
698 arities of compiled procedures may be accessed via procedures from the
699 `(system vm program)' module; see "Compiled Procedures", "Optional
700 Arguments", and "Case-lambda" in the manual.
702 ** `lambda*' and `define*' are now available in the default environment
704 As with `case-lambda', `(ice-9 optargs)' continues to be supported, for
705 compatibility purposes. No semantic change has been made (we hope).
706 Optional and keyword arguments now dispatch via special VM operations,
707 without the need to cons rest arguments, making them very fast.
709 ** New function, `truncated-print', with `format' support
711 `(ice-9 pretty-print)' now exports `truncated-print', a printer that
712 will ensure that the output stays within a certain width, truncating the
713 output in what is hopefully an intelligent manner. See the manual for
716 There is a new `format' specifier, `~@y', for doing a truncated
717 print (as opposed to `~y', which does a pretty-print). See the `format'
718 documentation for more details.
720 ** SRFI-4 vectors reimplemented in terms of R6RS bytevectors
722 Guile now implements SRFI-4 vectors using bytevectors. Often when you
723 have a numeric vector, you end up wanting to write its bytes somewhere,
724 or have access to the underlying bytes, or read in bytes from somewhere
725 else. Bytevectors are very good at this sort of thing. But the SRFI-4
726 APIs are nicer to use when doing number-crunching, because they are
727 addressed by element and not by byte.
729 So as a compromise, Guile allows all bytevector functions to operate on
730 numeric vectors. They address the underlying bytes in the native
731 endianness, as one would expect.
733 Following the same reasoning, that it's just bytes underneath, Guile
734 also allows uniform vectors of a given type to be accessed as if they
735 were of any type. One can fill a u32vector, and access its elements with
736 u8vector-ref. One can use f64vector-ref on bytevectors. It's all the
739 In this way, uniform numeric vectors may be written to and read from
740 input/output ports using the procedures that operate on bytevectors.
742 Calls to SRFI-4 accessors (ref and set functions) from Scheme are now
743 inlined to the VM instructions for bytevector access.
745 See "SRFI-4" in the manual, for more information.
747 ** Nonstandard SRFI-4 procedures now available from `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)'
749 Guile's `(srfi srfi-4)' now only exports those srfi-4 procedures that
750 are part of the standard. Complex uniform vectors and the
751 `any->FOOvector' family are now available only from `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)'.
753 Guile's default environment imports `(srfi srfi-4)', and probably should
754 import `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)' as well.
756 See "SRFI-4 Extensions" in the manual, for more information.
758 ** New syntax: include-from-path.
760 `include-from-path' is like `include', except it looks for its file in
761 the load path. It can be used to compile other files into a file.
763 ** New syntax: quasisyntax.
765 `quasisyntax' is to `syntax' as `quasiquote' is to `quote'. See the R6RS
766 documentation for more information. Thanks to Andre van Tonder for the
769 ** Unicode characters
771 Unicode characters may be entered in octal format via e.g. `#\454', or
772 created via (integer->char 300). A hex external representation will
773 probably be introduced at some point.
777 Internally, strings are now represented either in the `latin-1'
778 encoding, one byte per character, or in UTF-32, with four bytes per
779 character. Strings manage their own allocation, switching if needed.
781 Extended characters may be written in a literal string using the
782 hexadecimal escapes `\xXX', `\uXXXX', or `\UXXXXXX', for 8-bit, 16-bit,
783 or 24-bit codepoints, respectively, or entered directly in the native
784 encoding of the port on which the string is read.
788 One may now use U+03BB (GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMBDA) as an identifier.
790 ** Support for non-ASCII source code files
792 The default reader now handles source code files for some of the
793 non-ASCII character encodings, such as UTF-8. A non-ASCII source file
794 should have an encoding declaration near the top of the file. Also,
795 there is a new function, `file-encoding', that scans a port for a coding
796 declaration. See the section of the manual entitled, "Character Encoding
799 The pre-1.9.3 reader handled 8-bit clean but otherwise unspecified source
800 code. This use is now discouraged.
802 ** Support for locale transcoding when reading from and writing to ports
804 Ports now have an associated character encoding, and port read and write
805 operations do conversion to and from locales automatically. Ports also
806 have an associated strategy for how to deal with locale conversion
809 See the documentation in the manual for the four new support functions,
810 `set-port-encoding!', `port-encoding', `set-port-conversion-strategy!',
811 and `port-conversion-strategy'.
813 ** String and SRFI-13 functions can operate on Unicode strings
815 ** Unicode support for SRFI-14 character sets
817 The default character sets are no longer locale dependent and contain
818 characters from the whole Unicode range. There is a new predefined
819 character set, `char-set:designated', which contains all assigned
820 Unicode characters. There is a new debugging function, `%char-set-dump'.
822 ** Character functions operate on Unicode characters
824 `char-upcase' and `char-downcase' use default Unicode casing rules.
825 Character comparisons such as `char<?' and `char-ci<?' now sort based on
828 ** Global variables `scm_charnames' and `scm_charnums' are removed
830 These variables contained the names of control characters and were
831 used when writing characters. While these were global, they were
832 never intended to be public API. They have been replaced with private
835 ** EBCDIC support is removed
837 There was an EBCDIC compile flag that altered some of the character
838 processing. It appeared that full EBCDIC support was never completed
839 and was unmaintained.
841 ** Compile-time warnings
843 Guile can warn about potentially unbound free variables. Pass the
844 -Wunbound-variable on the `guile-tools compile' command line, or add
845 `#:warnings '(unbound-variable)' to your `compile' or `compile-file'
848 Guile can also warn when you pass the wrong number of arguments to a
849 procedure, with -Warity-mismatch, or `arity-mismatch' in the
850 `#:warnings' as above.
852 Other warnings include `-Wunused-variable' and `-Wunused-toplevel', to
853 warn about unused local or global (top-level) variables.
855 ** A new `memoize-symbol' evaluator trap has been added.
857 This trap can be used for efficiently implementing a Scheme code
860 ** Duplicate bindings among used modules are resolved lazily.
862 This slightly improves program startup times.
864 ** New thread cancellation and thread cleanup API
866 See `cancel-thread', `set-thread-cleanup!', and `thread-cleanup'.
868 ** GOOPS dispatch in scheme
870 As an implementation detail, GOOPS dispatch is no longer implemented by
871 special evaluator bytecodes, but rather directly via a Scheme function
872 associated with an applicable struct. There is some VM support for the
873 underlying primitives, like `class-of'.
875 This change will in the future allow users to customize generic function
876 dispatch without incurring a performance penalty, and allow us to
877 implement method combinations.
881 GOOPS had a number of concepts that were relevant to the days of Tcl,
882 but not any more: operators and entities, mainly. These objects were
883 never documented, and it is unlikely that they were ever used. Operators
884 were a kind of generic specific to the Tcl support. Entities were
885 applicable structures, but were unusable; entities will come back in the
886 next alpha release, but with a less stupid name.
888 ** Applicable struct support
890 One may now make structs from Scheme that may be applied as procedures.
891 To do so, make a struct whose vtable is `<applicable-struct-vtable>'.
892 That struct will be the vtable of your applicable structs; instances of
893 that new struct are assumed to have the procedure in their first slot.
894 `<applicable-struct-vtable>' is like Common Lisp's
895 `funcallable-standard-class'. Likewise there is
896 `<applicable-struct-with-setter-vtable>', which looks for the setter in
897 the second slot. This needs to be better documented.
899 ** New struct slot allocation: "hidden"
901 A hidden slot is readable and writable, but will not be initialized by a
902 call to make-struct. For example in your layout you would say "ph"
903 instead of "pw". Hidden slots are useful for adding new slots to a
904 vtable without breaking existing invocations to make-struct.
906 ** eqv? not a generic
908 One used to be able to extend `eqv?' as a primitive-generic, but no
909 more. Because `eqv?' is in the expansion of `case' (via `memv'), which
910 should be able to compile to static dispatch tables, it doesn't make
911 sense to allow extensions that would subvert this optimization.
913 ** `inet-ntop' and `inet-pton' are always available.
915 Guile now use a portable implementation of `inet_pton'/`inet_ntop', so
916 there is no more need to use `inet-aton'/`inet-ntoa'. The latter
917 functions are deprecated.
919 ** Fast bit operations.
921 The bit-twiddling operations `ash', `logand', `logior', and `logxor' now
922 have dedicated bytecodes. Guile is not just for symbolic computation,
923 it's for number crunching too.
925 ** Faster SRFI-9 record access
927 SRFI-9 records are now implemented directly on top of Guile's structs,
928 and their accessors are defined in such a way that normal call-sites
929 inline to special VM opcodes, while still allowing for the general case
930 (e.g. passing a record accessor to `apply').
932 ** R6RS block comment support
934 Guile now supports R6RS nested block comments. The start of a comment is
935 marked with `#|', and the end with `|#'.
937 ** `guile-2' cond-expand feature
939 To test if your code is running under Guile 2.0 (or its alpha releases),
940 test for the `guile-2' cond-expand feature. Like this:
942 (cond-expand (guile-2 (eval-when (compile)
943 ;; This must be evaluated at compile time.
944 (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
946 ;; Earlier versions of Guile do not have a
947 ;; separate compilation phase.
948 (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
950 ** Fix bad interaction between `false-if-exception' and stack-call.
952 Exceptions thrown by `false-if-exception' were erronously causing the
953 stack to be saved, causing later errors to show the incorrectly-saved
954 backtrace. This has been fixed.
956 ** New global variables: %load-compiled-path, %load-compiled-extensions
958 These are analogous to %load-path and %load-extensions.
960 ** New procedure, `make-promise'
962 `(make-promise (lambda () foo))' is equivalent to `(delay foo)'.
964 ** `defined?' may accept a module as its second argument
966 Previously it only accepted internal structures from the evaluator.
968 ** New entry into %guile-build-info: `ccachedir'
970 ** Fix bug in `module-bound?'.
972 `module-bound?' was returning true if a module did have a local
973 variable, but one that was unbound, but another imported module bound
974 the variable. This was an error, and was fixed.
976 ** `(ice-9 syncase)' has been deprecated.
978 As syntax-case is available by default, importing `(ice-9 syncase)' has
979 no effect, and will trigger a deprecation warning.
981 ** New readline history functions
983 The (ice-9 readline) module now provides add-history, read-history,
984 write-history and clear-history, which wrap the corresponding GNU
985 History library functions.
987 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures:
988 dimensions->uniform-array, list->uniform-array, array-prototype
990 Instead, use make-typed-array, list->typed-array, or array-type,
993 ** Last but not least, the `λ' macro can be used in lieu of `lambda'
995 * Changes to the C interface
997 ** Guile now uses libgc, the Boehm-Demers-Weiser garbage collector
999 The semantics of `scm_gc_malloc ()' have been changed, in a
1000 backward-compatible way. A new allocation routine,
1001 `scm_gc_malloc_pointerless ()', was added.
1003 Libgc is a conservative GC, which we hope will make interaction with C
1004 code easier and less error-prone.
1006 ** New type definitions for `scm_t_intptr' and friends.
1008 `SCM_T_UINTPTR_MAX', `SCM_T_INTPTR_MIN', `SCM_T_INTPTR_MAX',
1009 `SIZEOF_SCM_T_BITS', `scm_t_intptr' and `scm_t_uintptr' are now
1010 available to C. Have fun!
1012 ** The GH interface (deprecated in version 1.6, 2001) was removed.
1014 ** Internal `scm_i_' functions now have "hidden" linkage with GCC/ELF
1016 This makes these internal functions technically not callable from
1019 ** Functions for handling `scm_option' now no longer require an argument
1020 indicating length of the `scm_t_option' array.
1022 ** Procedures-with-setters are now implemented using applicable structs
1024 From a user's perspective this doesn't mean very much. But if, for some
1025 odd reason, you used the SCM_PROCEDURE_WITH_SETTER_P, SCM_PROCEDURE, or
1026 SCM_SETTER macros, know that they're deprecated now. Also, scm_tc7_pws
1029 ** Remove old evaluator closures
1031 There used to be ranges of typecodes allocated to interpreted data
1032 structures, but that it no longer the case, given that interpreted
1033 procedure are now just regular VM closures. As a result, there is a
1034 newly free tc3, and a number of removed macros. See the ChangeLog for
1037 ** Primitive procedures are now VM trampoline procedures
1039 It used to be that there were something like 12 different typecodes
1040 allocated to primitive procedures, each with its own calling convention.
1041 Now there is only one, the gsubr. This may affect user code if you were
1042 defining a procedure using scm_c_make_subr rather scm_c_make_gsubr. The
1043 solution is to switch to use scm_c_make_gsubr. This solution works well
1044 both with the old 1.8 and and with the current 1.9 branch.
1046 Guile's old evaluator used to have special cases for applying "gsubrs",
1047 primitive procedures with specified numbers of required, optional, and
1048 rest arguments. Now, however, Guile represents gsubrs as normal VM
1049 procedures, with appropriate bytecode to parse out the correct number of
1050 arguments, including optional and rest arguments, and then with a
1051 special bytecode to apply the gsubr.
1053 This allows primitive procedures to appear on the VM stack, allowing
1054 them to be accurately counted in profiles. Also they now have more
1055 debugging information attached to them -- their number of arguments, for
1056 example. In addition, the VM can completely inline the application
1057 mechanics, allowing for faster primitive calls.
1059 However there are some changes on the C level. There is no more
1060 `scm_tc7_gsubr' or `scm_tcs_subrs' typecode for primitive procedures, as
1061 they are just VM procedures. Likewise the macros `SCM_GSUBR_TYPE',
1062 `SCM_GSUBR_MAKTYPE', `SCM_GSUBR_REQ', `SCM_GSUBR_OPT', and
1063 `SCM_GSUBR_REST' are gone, as are `SCM_SUBR_META_INFO', `SCM_SUBR_PROPS'
1064 `SCM_SET_SUBR_GENERIC_LOC', and `SCM_SUBR_ARITY_TO_TYPE'.
1066 Perhaps more significantly, `scm_c_make_subr',
1067 `scm_c_make_subr_with_generic', `scm_c_define_subr', and
1068 `scm_c_define_subr_with_generic'. They all operated on subr typecodes,
1069 and there are no more subr typecodes. Use the scm_c_make_gsubr family
1072 Normal users of gsubrs should not be affected, though, as the
1073 scm_c_make_gsubr family still is the correct way to create primitive
1076 ** Remove deprecated array C interfaces
1078 Removed the deprecated array functions `scm_i_arrayp',
1079 `scm_i_array_ndim', `scm_i_array_mem', `scm_i_array_v',
1080 `scm_i_array_base', `scm_i_array_dims', and the deprecated macros
1081 `SCM_ARRAYP', `SCM_ARRAY_NDIM', `SCM_ARRAY_CONTP', `SCM_ARRAY_MEM',
1082 `SCM_ARRAY_V', `SCM_ARRAY_BASE', and `SCM_ARRAY_DIMS'.
1084 ** Remove unused snarf macros
1086 `SCM_DEFINE1', `SCM_PRIMITIVE_GENERIC_1', `SCM_PROC1, and `SCM_GPROC1'
1087 are no more. Use SCM_DEFINE or SCM_PRIMITIVE_GENERIC instead.
1089 ** Add foreign value wrapper
1091 Guile now has a datatype for aliasing "foreign" values, such as native
1092 long values. This should be useful for making a proper foreign function
1093 interface. Interested hackers should see libguile/foreign.h.
1095 ** New functions: `scm_call_n', `scm_c_run_hookn'
1097 `scm_call_n' applies to apply a function to an array of arguments.
1098 `scm_c_run_hookn' runs a hook with an array of arguments.
1100 ** Some SMOB types changed to have static typecodes
1102 Fluids, dynamic states, and hash tables used to be SMOB objects, but now
1103 they have statically allocated tc7 typecodes.
1105 ** Preparations for changing SMOB representation
1107 If things go right, we'll be changing the SMOB representation soon. To
1108 that end, we did a lot of cleanups to calls to e.g. SCM_CELL_WORD_2(x) when
1109 the code meant SCM_SMOB_DATA_2(x); user code will need similar changes
1110 in the future. Code accessing SMOBs using SCM_CELL macros was never
1111 correct, but until now things still worked. Users should be aware of
1114 ** Changed invocation mechanics of applicable SMOBs
1116 Guile's old evaluator used to have special cases for applying SMOB
1117 objects. Now, with the VM, when Guile sees a SMOB, it looks up a VM
1118 trampoline procedure for it, and use the normal mechanics to apply the
1119 trampoline. This simplifies procedure application in the normal,
1122 The upshot is that the mechanics used to apply a SMOB are different from
1123 1.8. Descriptors no longer have `apply_0', `apply_1', `apply_2', and
1124 `apply_3' functions, and the macros SCM_SMOB_APPLY_0 and friends are now
1125 deprecated. Just use the scm_call_0 family of procedures.
1127 ** New C function: scm_module_public_interface
1129 This procedure corresponds to Scheme's `module-public-interface'.
1131 ** Undeprecate `scm_the_root_module ()'
1133 It's useful to be able to get the root module from C without doing a
1136 ** Inline vector allocation
1138 Instead of having vectors point out into the heap for their data, their
1139 data is now allocated inline to the vector object itself. The same is
1140 true for bytevectors, by default, though there is an indirection
1141 available which should allow for making a bytevector from an existing
1144 ** New struct constructors that don't involve making lists
1146 `scm_c_make_struct' and `scm_c_make_structv' are new varargs and array
1147 constructors, respectively, for structs. You might find them useful.
1151 In Guile 1.8, there were debugging frames on the C stack. Now there is
1152 no more need to explicitly mark the stack in this way, because Guile has
1153 a VM stack that it knows how to walk, which simplifies the C API
1154 considerably. See the ChangeLog for details; the relevant interface is
1155 in libguile/stacks.h. The Scheme API has not been changed significantly.
1157 ** Removal of Guile's primitive object system.
1159 There were a number of pieces in `objects.[ch]' that tried to be a
1160 minimal object system, but were never documented, and were quickly
1161 obseleted by GOOPS' merge into Guile proper. So `scm_make_class_object',
1162 `scm_make_subclass_object', `scm_metaclass_standard', and like symbols
1163 from objects.h are no more. In the very unlikely case in which these
1164 were useful to you, we urge you to contact guile-devel.
1168 Actually the future is still in the state that it was, is, and ever
1169 shall be, Amen, except that `futures.c' and `futures.h' are no longer a
1170 part of it. These files were experimental, never compiled, and would be
1171 better implemented in Scheme anyway. In the future, that is.
1173 ** Deprecate trampolines
1175 There used to be C functions `scm_trampoline_0', `scm_trampoline_1', and
1176 so on. The point was to do some precomputation on the type of the
1177 procedure, then return a specialized "call" procedure. However this
1178 optimization wasn't actually an optimization, so it is now deprecated.
1179 Just use `scm_call_0', etc instead.
1181 ** Better support for Lisp `nil'.
1183 The bit representation of `nil' has been tweaked so that it is now very
1184 efficient to check e.g. if a value is equal to Scheme's end-of-list or
1185 Lisp's nil. Additionally there are a heap of new, specific predicates
1186 like scm_is_null_or_nil. Probably in the future we will #define
1187 scm_is_null to scm_is_null_or_nil.
1189 ** Support for static allocation of strings, symbols, and subrs.
1191 Calls to snarfing CPP macros like SCM_DEFINE macro will now allocate
1192 much of their associated data as static variables, reducing Guile's
1195 ** `scm_stat' has an additional argument, `exception_on_error'
1196 ** `scm_primitive_load_path' has an additional argument `exception_on_not_found'
1198 ** `scm_set_port_seek' and `scm_set_port_truncate' use the `scm_t_off' type
1200 Previously they would use the `off_t' type, which is fragile since its
1201 definition depends on the application's value for `_FILE_OFFSET_BITS'.
1203 ** The `long_long' C type, deprecated in 1.8, has been removed
1205 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures: scm_make_uve,
1206 scm_array_prototype, scm_list_to_uniform_array,
1207 scm_dimensions_to_uniform_array, scm_make_ra, scm_shap2ra, scm_cvref,
1208 scm_ra_set_contp, scm_aind, scm_raprin1
1210 These functions have been deprecated since early 2005.
1212 * Changes to the distribution
1214 ** Guile's license is now LGPLv3+
1216 In other words the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3 or
1217 later (at the discretion of each person that chooses to redistribute
1220 ** GOOPS documentation folded into Guile reference manual
1222 GOOPS, Guile's object system, used to be documented in separate manuals.
1223 This content is now included in Guile's manual directly.
1225 ** `guile-config' will be deprecated in favor of `pkg-config'
1227 `guile-config' has been rewritten to get its information from
1228 `pkg-config', so this should be a transparent change. Note however that
1229 guile.m4 has yet to be modified to call pkg-config instead of
1232 ** Guile now provides `guile-2.0.pc' instead of `guile-1.8.pc'
1234 Programs that use `pkg-config' to find Guile or one of its Autoconf
1235 macros should now require `guile-2.0' instead of `guile-1.8'.
1237 ** New installation directory: $(pkglibdir)/1.9/ccache
1239 If $(libdir) is /usr/lib, for example, Guile will install its .go files
1240 to /usr/lib/guile/1.9/ccache. These files are architecture-specific.
1242 ** Dynamically loadable extensions may be placed in a Guile-specific path
1244 Before, Guile only searched the system library paths for extensions
1245 (e.g. /usr/lib), which meant that the names of Guile extensions had to
1246 be globally unique. Installing them to a Guile-specific extensions
1247 directory is cleaner. Use `pkg-config --variable=extensionsdir
1248 guile-2.0' to get the location of the extensions directory.
1250 ** New dependency: libgc
1252 See http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/, for more information.
1254 ** New dependency: GNU libunistring
1256 See http://www.gnu.org/software/libunistring/, for more information. Our
1257 Unicode support uses routines from libunistring.
1259 ** New dependency: libffi
1261 See http://sourceware.org/libffi/, for more information.
1265 Changes in 1.8.8 (since 1.8.7)
1269 ** Fix possible buffer overruns when parsing numbers
1270 ** Avoid clash with system setjmp/longjmp on IA64
1271 ** Fix `wrong type arg' exceptions with IPv6 addresses
1274 Changes in 1.8.7 (since 1.8.6)
1276 * New modules (see the manual for details)
1278 ** `(srfi srfi-98)', an interface to access environment variables
1282 ** Fix compilation with `--disable-deprecated'
1283 ** Fix %fast-slot-ref/set!, to avoid possible segmentation fault
1284 ** Fix MinGW build problem caused by HAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC confusion
1285 ** Fix build problem when scm_t_timespec is different from struct timespec
1286 ** Fix build when compiled with -Wundef -Werror
1287 ** More build fixes for `alphaev56-dec-osf5.1b' (Tru64)
1288 ** Build fixes for `powerpc-ibm-aix5.3.0.0' (AIX 5.3)
1289 ** With GCC, always compile with `-mieee' on `alpha*' and `sh*'
1290 ** Better diagnose broken `(strftime "%z" ...)' in `time.test' (bug #24130)
1291 ** Fix parsing of SRFI-88/postfix keywords longer than 128 characters
1292 ** Fix reading of complex numbers where both parts are inexact decimals
1294 ** Allow @ macro to work with (ice-9 syncase)
1296 Previously, use of the @ macro in a module whose code is being
1297 transformed by (ice-9 syncase) would cause an "Invalid syntax" error.
1298 Now it works as you would expect (giving the value of the specified
1301 ** Have `scm_take_locale_symbol ()' return an interned symbol (bug #25865)
1304 Changes in 1.8.6 (since 1.8.5)
1306 * New features (see the manual for details)
1308 ** New convenience function `scm_c_symbol_length ()'
1310 ** Single stepping through code from Emacs
1312 When you use GDS to evaluate Scheme code from Emacs, you can now use
1313 `C-u' to indicate that you want to single step through that code. See
1314 `Evaluating Scheme Code' in the manual for more details.
1316 ** New "guile(1)" man page!
1318 * Changes to the distribution
1320 ** Automake's `AM_MAINTAINER_MODE' is no longer used
1322 Thus, the `--enable-maintainer-mode' configure option is no longer
1323 available: Guile is now always configured in "maintainer mode".
1325 ** `ChangeLog' files are no longer updated
1327 Instead, changes are detailed in the version control system's logs. See
1328 the top-level `ChangeLog' files for details.
1333 ** `symbol->string' now returns a read-only string, as per R5RS
1334 ** Fix incorrect handling of the FLAGS argument of `fold-matches'
1335 ** `guile-config link' now prints `-L$libdir' before `-lguile'
1336 ** Fix memory corruption involving GOOPS' `class-redefinition'
1337 ** Fix possible deadlock in `mutex-lock'
1338 ** Fix build issue on Tru64 and ia64-hp-hpux11.23 (`SCM_UNPACK' macro)
1339 ** Fix build issue on mips, mipsel, powerpc and ia64 (stack direction)
1340 ** Fix build issue on hppa2.0w-hp-hpux11.11 (`dirent64' and `readdir64_r')
1341 ** Fix build issue on i386-unknown-freebsd7.0 ("break strict-aliasing rules")
1342 ** Fix misleading output from `(help rationalize)'
1343 ** Fix build failure on Debian hppa architecture (bad stack growth detection)
1344 ** Fix `gcd' when called with a single, negative argument.
1345 ** Fix `Stack overflow' errors seen when building on some platforms
1346 ** Fix bug when `scm_with_guile ()' was called several times from the
1348 ** The handler of SRFI-34 `with-exception-handler' is now invoked in the
1349 dynamic environment of the call to `raise'
1350 ** Fix potential deadlock in `make-struct'
1351 ** Fix compilation problem with libltdl from Libtool 2.2.x
1352 ** Fix sloppy bound checking in `string-{ref,set!}' with the empty string
1355 Changes in 1.8.5 (since 1.8.4)
1357 * Infrastructure changes
1359 ** Guile repository switched from CVS to Git
1361 The new repository can be accessed using
1362 "git-clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/guile.git", or can be browsed on-line at
1363 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=guile.git . See `README' for details.
1365 ** Add support for `pkg-config'
1367 See "Autoconf Support" in the manual for details.
1369 * New modules (see the manual for details)
1373 * New features (see the manual for details)
1375 ** New `postfix' read option, for SRFI-88 keyword syntax
1376 ** Some I/O primitives have been inlined, which improves I/O performance
1377 ** New object-based traps infrastructure
1379 This is a GOOPS-based infrastructure that builds on Guile's low-level
1380 evaluator trap calls and facilitates the development of debugging
1381 features like single-stepping, breakpoints, tracing and profiling.
1382 See the `Traps' node of the manual for details.
1384 ** New support for working on Guile code from within Emacs
1386 Guile now incorporates the `GDS' library (previously distributed
1387 separately) for working on Guile code from within Emacs. See the
1388 `Using Guile In Emacs' node of the manual for details.
1392 ** `scm_add_slot ()' no longer segfaults (fixes bug #22369)
1393 ** Fixed `(ice-9 match)' for patterns like `((_ ...) ...)'
1395 Previously, expressions like `(match '((foo) (bar)) (((_ ...) ...) #t))'
1396 would trigger an unbound variable error for `match:andmap'.
1398 ** `(oop goops describe)' now properly provides the `describe' feature
1399 ** Fixed `args-fold' from `(srfi srfi-37)'
1401 Previously, parsing short option names of argument-less options would
1402 lead to a stack overflow.
1404 ** `(srfi srfi-35)' is now visible through `cond-expand'
1405 ** Fixed type-checking for the second argument of `eval'
1406 ** Fixed type-checking for SRFI-1 `partition'
1407 ** Fixed `struct-ref' and `struct-set!' on "light structs"
1408 ** Honor struct field access rights in GOOPS
1409 ** Changed the storage strategy of source properties, which fixes a deadlock
1410 ** Allow compilation of Guile-using programs in C99 mode with GCC 4.3 and later
1411 ** Fixed build issue for GNU/Linux on IA64
1412 ** Fixed build issues on NetBSD 1.6
1413 ** Fixed build issue on Solaris 2.10 x86_64
1414 ** Fixed build issue with DEC/Compaq/HP's compiler
1415 ** Fixed `scm_from_complex_double' build issue on FreeBSD
1416 ** Fixed `alloca' build issue on FreeBSD 6
1417 ** Removed use of non-portable makefile constructs
1418 ** Fixed shadowing of libc's <random.h> on Tru64, which broke compilation
1419 ** Make sure all tests honor `$TMPDIR'
1422 Changes in 1.8.4 (since 1.8.3)
1426 ** CR (ASCII 0x0d) is (again) recognized as a token delimiter by the reader
1427 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when displaying the
1428 backtrace of a stack with a promise object (made by `delay') in it.
1429 ** Make `accept' leave guile mode while blocking
1430 ** `scm_c_read ()' and `scm_c_write ()' now type-check their port argument
1431 ** Fixed a build problem on AIX (use of func_data identifier)
1432 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when hashx-ref or hashx-set! was
1433 called with an associator proc that returns neither a pair nor #f.
1434 ** Secondary threads now always return a valid module for (current-module).
1435 ** Avoid MacOS build problems caused by incorrect combination of "64"
1436 system and library calls.
1437 ** `guile-snarf' now honors `$TMPDIR'
1438 ** `guile-config compile' now reports CPPFLAGS used at compile-time
1439 ** Fixed build with Sun Studio (Solaris 9)
1440 ** Fixed wrong-type-arg errors when creating zero length SRFI-4
1441 uniform vectors on AIX.
1442 ** Fixed a deadlock that occurs upon GC with multiple threads.
1443 ** Fixed compile problem with GCC on Solaris and AIX (use of _Complex_I)
1444 ** Fixed autotool-derived build problems on AIX 6.1.
1445 ** Fixed NetBSD/alpha support
1446 ** Fixed MacOS build problem caused by use of rl_get_keymap(_name)
1448 * New modules (see the manual for details)
1452 * Documentation fixes and improvements
1454 ** Removed premature breakpoint documentation
1456 The features described are not available in the series of 1.8.x
1457 releases, so the documentation was misleading and has been removed.
1459 ** More about Guile's default *random-state* variable
1461 ** GOOPS: more about how to use `next-method'
1463 * Changes to the distribution
1465 ** Corrected a few files that referred incorrectly to the old GPL + special exception licence
1467 In fact Guile since 1.8.0 has been licensed with the GNU Lesser
1468 General Public License, and the few incorrect files have now been
1469 fixed to agree with the rest of the Guile distribution.
1471 ** Removed unnecessary extra copies of COPYING*
1473 The distribution now contains a single COPYING.LESSER at its top level.
1476 Changes in 1.8.3 (since 1.8.2)
1478 * New modules (see the manual for details)
1485 ** The `(ice-9 slib)' module now works as expected
1486 ** Expressions like "(set! 'x #t)" no longer yield a crash
1487 ** Warnings about duplicate bindings now go to stderr
1488 ** A memory leak in `make-socket-address' was fixed
1489 ** Alignment issues (e.g., on SPARC) in network routines were fixed
1490 ** A threading issue that showed up at least on NetBSD was fixed
1491 ** Build problems on Solaris and IRIX fixed
1493 * Implementation improvements
1495 ** The reader is now faster, which reduces startup time
1496 ** Procedures returned by `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' are faster
1499 Changes in 1.8.2 (since 1.8.1):
1501 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
1503 ** set-program-arguments
1506 * Incompatible changes
1508 ** The body of a top-level `define' no longer sees the binding being created
1510 In a top-level `define', the binding being created is no longer visible
1511 from the `define' body. This breaks code like
1512 "(define foo (begin (set! foo 1) (+ foo 1)))", where `foo' is now
1513 unbound in the body. However, such code was not R5RS-compliant anyway,
1518 ** Fractions were not `equal?' if stored in unreduced form.
1519 (A subtle problem, since printing a value reduced it, making it work.)
1520 ** srfi-60 `copy-bit' failed on 64-bit systems
1521 ** "guile --use-srfi" option at the REPL can replace core functions
1522 (Programs run with that option were ok, but in the interactive REPL
1523 the core bindings got priority, preventing SRFI replacements or
1525 ** `regexp-exec' doesn't abort() on #\nul in the input or bad flags arg
1526 ** `kill' on mingw throws an error for a PID other than oneself
1527 ** Procedure names are attached to procedure-with-setters
1528 ** Array read syntax works with negative lower bound
1529 ** `array-in-bounds?' fix if an array has different lower bounds on each index
1530 ** `*' returns exact 0 for "(* inexact 0)"
1531 This follows what it always did for "(* 0 inexact)".
1532 ** SRFI-19: Value returned by `(current-time time-process)' was incorrect
1533 ** SRFI-19: `date->julian-day' did not account for timezone offset
1534 ** `ttyname' no longer crashes when passed a non-tty argument
1535 ** `inet-ntop' no longer crashes on SPARC when passed an `AF_INET' address
1536 ** Small memory leaks have been fixed in `make-fluid' and `add-history'
1537 ** GOOPS: Fixed a bug in `method-more-specific?'
1538 ** Build problems on Solaris fixed
1539 ** Build problems on HP-UX IA64 fixed
1540 ** Build problems on MinGW fixed
1543 Changes in 1.8.1 (since 1.8.0):
1545 * LFS functions are now used to access 64-bit files on 32-bit systems.
1547 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
1549 ** primitive-_exit - [Scheme] the-root-module
1550 ** scm_primitive__exit - [C]
1551 ** make-completion-function - [Scheme] (ice-9 readline)
1552 ** scm_c_locale_stringn_to_number - [C]
1553 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse [C]
1554 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse_x [C]
1562 ** Build problems have been fixed on MacOS, SunOS, and QNX.
1564 ** `strftime' fix sign of %z timezone offset.
1566 ** A one-dimensional array can now be 'equal?' to a vector.
1568 ** Structures, records, and SRFI-9 records can now be compared with `equal?'.
1570 ** SRFI-14 standard char sets are recomputed upon a successful `setlocale'.
1572 ** `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' now have strict type checks.
1574 Record accessor and modifier procedures now throw an error if the
1575 record type of the record they're given is not the type expected.
1576 (Previously accessors returned #f and modifiers silently did nothing).
1578 ** It is now OK to use both autoload and use-modules on a given module.
1580 ** `apply' checks the number of arguments more carefully on "0 or 1" funcs.
1582 Previously there was no checking on primatives like make-vector that
1583 accept "one or two" arguments. Now there is.
1585 ** The srfi-1 assoc function now calls its equality predicate properly.
1587 Previously srfi-1 assoc would call the equality predicate with the key
1588 last. According to the SRFI, the key should be first.
1590 ** A bug in n-par-for-each and n-for-each-par-map has been fixed.
1592 ** The array-set! procedure no longer segfaults when given a bit vector.
1594 ** Bugs in make-shared-array have been fixed.
1596 ** string<? and friends now follow char<? etc order on 8-bit chars.
1598 ** The format procedure now handles inf and nan values for ~f correctly.
1600 ** exact->inexact should no longer overflow when given certain large fractions.
1602 ** srfi-9 accessor and modifier procedures now have strict record type checks.
1604 This matches the srfi-9 specification.
1606 ** (ice-9 ftw) procedures won't ignore different files with same inode number.
1608 Previously the (ice-9 ftw) procedures would ignore any file that had
1609 the same inode number as a file they had already seen, even if that
1610 file was on a different device.
1613 Changes in 1.8.0 (changes since the 1.6.x series):
1615 * Changes to the distribution
1617 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
1619 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
1621 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
1623 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
1625 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
1627 That is, things like HAVE_STRING_H no longer leak from Guile's
1630 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
1632 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
1633 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
1634 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
1635 so the current effective-version is "1.8". The effective version
1636 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
1637 items like the versioned share directory name
1638 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.8.
1640 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
1641 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
1642 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
1643 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
1644 with each micro release during a stable series.
1646 ** Thread implementation has changed.
1648 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
1649 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
1650 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
1651 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
1652 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
1655 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
1656 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
1657 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
1658 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
1661 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
1662 in which case "null" threads are used.
1664 See the manual for details, nodes "Initialization", "Multi-Threading",
1665 "Blocking", and others.
1667 ** There is the new notion of 'discouraged' features.
1669 This is a milder form of deprecation.
1671 Things that are discouraged should not be used in new code, but it is
1672 OK to leave them in old code for now. When a discouraged feature is
1673 used, no warning message is printed like there is for 'deprecated'
1674 features. Also, things that are merely discouraged are nevertheless
1675 implemented efficiently, while deprecated features can be very slow.
1677 You can omit discouraged features from libguile by configuring it with
1678 the '--disable-discouraged' option.
1680 ** Deprecation warnings can be controlled at run-time.
1682 (debug-enable 'warn-deprecated) switches them on and (debug-disable
1683 'warn-deprecated) switches them off.
1685 ** Support for SRFI 61, extended cond syntax for multiple values has
1688 This SRFI is always available.
1690 ** Support for require-extension, SRFI-55, has been added.
1692 The SRFI-55 special form `require-extension' has been added. It is
1693 available at startup, and provides a portable way to load Scheme
1694 extensions. SRFI-55 only requires support for one type of extension,
1695 "srfi"; so a set of SRFIs may be loaded via (require-extension (srfi 1
1698 ** New module (srfi srfi-26) provides support for `cut' and `cute'.
1700 The (srfi srfi-26) module is an implementation of SRFI-26 which
1701 provides the `cut' and `cute' syntax. These may be used to specialize
1702 parameters without currying.
1704 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
1706 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
1707 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
1709 ** The modules (srfi srfi-13), (srfi srfi-14) and (srfi srfi-4) have
1710 been merged with the core, making their functionality always
1713 The modules are still available, tho, and you could use them together
1714 with a renaming import, for example.
1716 ** Guile no longer includes its own version of libltdl.
1718 The official version is good enough now.
1720 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
1722 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
1723 provided. Use 'make html'.
1725 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
1727 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when you
1728 don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but where you
1729 have some section(s) of code which you consider can run in parallel to
1730 other sections. See ice-9/serialize.scm for more information.
1732 ** The configure option '--disable-arrays' has been removed.
1734 Support for arrays and uniform numeric arrays is now always included
1737 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1739 ** New command line option `-L'.
1741 This option adds a directory to the front of the load path.
1743 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
1745 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
1746 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
1748 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
1750 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
1751 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
1753 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
1755 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
1756 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
1759 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
1762 (define-module (demo)
1766 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
1769 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1771 ** Guardians have changed back to their original semantics
1773 Guardians now behave like described in the paper by Dybvig et al. In
1774 particular, they no longer make guarantees about the order in which
1775 they return objects, and they can no longer be greedy.
1777 They no longer drop cyclic data structures.
1779 The C function scm_make_guardian has been changed incompatibly and no
1780 longer takes the 'greedy_p' argument.
1782 ** New function hashx-remove!
1784 This function completes the set of 'hashx' functions.
1786 ** The concept of dynamic roots has been factored into continuation
1787 barriers and dynamic states.
1789 Each thread has a current dynamic state that carries the values of the
1790 fluids. You can create and copy dynamic states and use them as the
1791 second argument for 'eval'. See "Fluids and Dynamic States" in the
1794 To restrict the influence that captured continuations can have on the
1795 control flow, you can errect continuation barriers. See "Continuation
1796 Barriers" in the manual.
1798 The function call-with-dynamic-root now essentially temporarily
1799 installs a new dynamic state and errects a continuation barrier.
1801 ** The default load path no longer includes "." at the end.
1803 Automatically loading modules from the current directory should not
1804 happen by default. If you want to allow it in a more controlled
1805 manner, set the environment variable GUILE_LOAD_PATH or the Scheme
1806 variable %load-path.
1808 ** The uniform vector and array support has been overhauled.
1810 It now complies with SRFI-4 and the weird prototype based uniform
1811 array creation has been deprecated. See the manual for more details.
1813 Some non-compatible changes have been made:
1814 - characters can no longer be stored into byte arrays.
1815 - strings and bit vectors are no longer considered to be uniform numeric
1817 - array-rank throws an error for non-arrays instead of returning zero.
1818 - array-ref does no longer accept non-arrays when no indices are given.
1820 There is the new notion of 'generalized vectors' and corresponding
1821 procedures like 'generalized-vector-ref'. Generalized vectors include
1822 strings, bitvectors, ordinary vectors, and uniform numeric vectors.
1824 Arrays use generalized vectors as their storage, so that you still
1825 have arrays of characters, bits, etc. However, uniform-array-read!
1826 and uniform-array-write can no longer read/write strings and
1829 ** There is now support for copy-on-write substrings, mutation-sharing
1830 substrings and read-only strings.
1832 Three new procedures are related to this: substring/shared,
1833 substring/copy, and substring/read-only. See the manual for more
1836 ** Backtraces will now highlight the value that caused the error.
1838 By default, these values are enclosed in "{...}", such as in this
1847 <unnamed port>:1:1: In procedure car in expression (car (quote a)):
1848 <unnamed port>:1:1: Wrong type (expecting pair): a
1849 ABORT: (wrong-type-arg)
1851 The prefix and suffix used for highlighting can be set via the two new
1852 printer options 'highlight-prefix' and 'highlight-suffix'. For
1853 example, putting this into ~/.guile will output the bad value in bold
1854 on an ANSI terminal:
1856 (print-set! highlight-prefix "\x1b[1m")
1857 (print-set! highlight-suffix "\x1b[22m")
1860 ** 'gettext' support for internationalization has been added.
1862 See the manual for details.
1864 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
1866 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
1869 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
1871 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
1872 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
1873 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
1874 '@' as a target of 'set!', as in (set! (@ mod var) val).
1876 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
1877 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
1878 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
1881 ** Keyword syntax has been made more disciplined.
1883 Previously, the name of a keyword was read as a 'token' but printed as
1884 a symbol. Now, it is read as a general Scheme datum which must be a
1895 ERROR: In expression (a b c):
1899 ERROR: Unbound variable: foo
1904 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): 12
1908 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): (a b c)
1912 ** The printing of symbols that might look like keywords can be
1915 The new printer option 'quote-keywordish-symbols' controls how symbols
1916 are printed that have a colon as their first or last character. The
1917 default now is to only quote a symbol with #{...}# when the read
1918 option 'keywords' is not '#f'. Thus:
1920 guile> (define foo (string->symbol ":foo"))
1921 guile> (read-set! keywords #f)
1924 guile> (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
1927 guile> (print-set! quote-keywordish-symbols #f)
1931 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
1933 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
1934 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
1935 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
1938 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
1941 ** The module system now checks for duplicate bindings.
1943 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
1946 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more 'duplicates'
1947 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
1950 (define-module (foo)
1955 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
1956 has been detected is to
1958 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
1959 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
1960 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
1963 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
1966 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
1968 to your .guile init file.
1970 ** New define-module option: :replace
1972 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
1975 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
1976 for the core binding `format'.
1978 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
1980 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
1981 a prefix to all imported bindings.
1983 (define-module (foo)
1984 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
1986 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
1989 ** Conflicting generic functions can be automatically merged.
1991 When two imported bindings conflict and they are both generic
1992 functions, the two functions can now be merged automatically. This is
1993 activated with the 'duplicates' handler 'merge-generics'.
1995 ** New function: effective-version
1997 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
1998 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
1999 to the distribution" above.
2001 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
2003 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
2004 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
2006 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
2008 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
2009 instead of blocking and indicate failure.
2011 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
2013 The function 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
2014 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
2017 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
2019 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
2021 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
2023 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
2024 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
2025 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
2028 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
2029 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
2030 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
2031 'system-async-mark'.
2033 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
2034 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
2036 When a thread blocks on a mutex, a condition variable or is waiting
2037 for IO to be possible, it will still execute system asyncs. This can
2038 be used to interrupt such a thread by making it execute a 'throw', for
2041 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
2043 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
2044 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
2047 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
2048 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
2050 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
2051 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
2052 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
2053 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
2054 level for the current thread.
2056 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
2058 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
2060 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
2061 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
2064 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
2066 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
2068 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
2071 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
2073 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
2076 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
2077 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
2078 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
2080 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
2081 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
2082 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
2083 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
2094 ERROR: Numerical overflow
2096 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
2099 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
2101 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
2102 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
2103 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
2114 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
2116 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
2117 them is also done exactly, of course:
2122 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
2123 for exact arguments.
2125 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
2126 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
2128 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
2130 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
2131 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
2132 equal to a floating point number. For example:
2134 (inexact->exact 1.234)
2135 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
2137 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitly:
2139 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
2142 ** New function 'rationalize'.
2144 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
2145 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
2147 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
2150 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
2151 result when both its arguments are exact.
2153 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
2155 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
2156 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
2157 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
2159 ** Guile now has uninterned symbols.
2161 The new function 'make-symbol' will return an uninterned symbol. This
2162 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
2163 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
2165 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
2168 ** pretty-print has more options.
2170 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
2171 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
2172 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
2174 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
2176 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
2177 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
2178 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
2180 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
2182 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
2183 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
2185 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
2187 Change your code to use 'define-macro' or r5rs macros. Also, be aware
2188 that macro expansion will not be done during evaluation, but prior to
2191 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
2193 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
2194 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
2195 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
2196 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
2197 without the soft port blocking.
2199 ** Deprecated: undefine
2201 There is no replacement for undefine.
2203 ** The functions make-keyword-from-dash-symbol and keyword-dash-symbol
2204 have been discouraged.
2206 They are relics from a time where a keyword like #:foo was used
2207 directly as a Tcl option "-foo" and thus keywords were internally
2208 stored as a symbol with a starting dash. We now store a symbol
2211 Use symbol->keyword and keyword->symbol instead.
2213 ** The `cheap' debug option is now obsolete
2215 Evaluator trap calls are now unconditionally "cheap" - in other words,
2216 they pass a debug object to the trap handler rather than a full
2217 continuation. The trap handler code can capture a full continuation
2218 by using `call-with-current-continuation' in the usual way, if it so
2221 The `cheap' option is retained for now so as not to break existing
2222 code which gets or sets it, but setting it now has no effect. It will
2223 be removed in the next major Guile release.
2225 ** Evaluator trap calls now support `tweaking'
2227 `Tweaking' means that the trap handler code can modify the Scheme
2228 expression that is about to be evaluated (in the case of an
2229 enter-frame trap) or the value that is being returned (in the case of
2230 an exit-frame trap). The trap handler code indicates that it wants to
2231 do this by returning a pair whose car is the symbol 'instead and whose
2232 cdr is the modified expression or return value.
2234 * Changes to the C interface
2236 ** The functions scm_hash_fn_remove_x and scm_hashx_remove_x no longer
2237 take a 'delete' function argument.
2239 This argument makes no sense since the delete function is used to
2240 remove a pair from an alist, and this must not be configurable.
2242 This is an incompatible change.
2244 ** The GH interface is now subject to the deprecation mechanism
2246 The GH interface has been deprecated for quite some time but now it is
2247 actually removed from Guile when it is configured with
2248 --disable-deprecated.
2250 See the manual "Transitioning away from GH" for more information.
2252 ** A new family of functions for converting between C values and
2253 Scheme values has been added.
2255 These functions follow a common naming scheme and are designed to be
2256 easier to use, thread-safe and more future-proof than the older
2259 - int scm_is_* (...)
2261 These are predicates that return a C boolean: 1 or 0. Instead of
2262 SCM_NFALSEP, you can now use scm_is_true, for example.
2264 - <type> scm_to_<type> (SCM val, ...)
2266 These are functions that convert a Scheme value into an appropriate
2267 C value. For example, you can use scm_to_int to safely convert from
2270 - SCM scm_from_<type> (<type> val, ...)
2272 These functions convert from a C type to a SCM value; for example,
2273 scm_from_int for ints.
2275 There is a huge number of these functions, for numbers, strings,
2276 symbols, vectors, etc. They are documented in the reference manual in
2277 the API section together with the types that they apply to.
2279 ** New functions for dealing with complex numbers in C have been added.
2281 The new functions are scm_c_make_rectangular, scm_c_make_polar,
2282 scm_c_real_part, scm_c_imag_part, scm_c_magnitude and scm_c_angle.
2283 They work like scm_make_rectangular etc but take or return doubles
2286 ** The function scm_make_complex has been discouraged.
2288 Use scm_c_make_rectangular instead.
2290 ** The INUM macros have been deprecated.
2292 A lot of code uses these macros to do general integer conversions,
2293 although the macros only work correctly with fixnums. Use the
2294 following alternatives.
2296 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
2297 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
2298 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
2299 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
2301 SCM_VALIDATE_INUM_* -> Do not use these; scm_to_int, etc. will
2302 do the validating for you.
2304 ** The scm_num2<type> and scm_<type>2num functions and scm_make_real
2305 have been discouraged.
2307 Use the newer scm_to_<type> and scm_from_<type> functions instead for
2308 new code. The functions have been discouraged since they don't fit
2311 ** The 'boolean' macros SCM_FALSEP etc have been discouraged.
2313 They have strange names, especially SCM_NFALSEP, and SCM_BOOLP
2314 evaluates its argument twice. Use scm_is_true, etc. instead for new
2317 ** The macro SCM_EQ_P has been discouraged.
2319 Use scm_is_eq for new code, which fits better into the naming
2322 ** The macros SCM_CONSP, SCM_NCONSP, SCM_NULLP, and SCM_NNULLP have
2325 Use the function scm_is_pair or scm_is_null instead.
2327 ** The functions scm_round and scm_truncate have been deprecated and
2328 are now available as scm_c_round and scm_c_truncate, respectively.
2330 These functions occupy the names that scm_round_number and
2331 scm_truncate_number should have.
2333 ** The functions scm_c_string2str, scm_c_substring2str, and
2334 scm_c_symbol2str have been deprecated.
2336 Use scm_to_locale_stringbuf or similar instead, maybe together with
2339 ** New functions scm_c_make_string, scm_c_string_length,
2340 scm_c_string_ref, scm_c_string_set_x, scm_c_substring,
2341 scm_c_substring_shared, scm_c_substring_copy.
2343 These are like scm_make_string, scm_length, etc. but are slightly
2344 easier to use from C.
2346 ** The macros SCM_STRINGP, SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_STRING_LENGTH,
2347 SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, and SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH have been deprecated.
2349 They export too many assumptions about the implementation of strings
2350 and symbols that are no longer true in the presence of
2351 mutation-sharing substrings and when Guile switches to some form of
2354 When working with strings, it is often best to use the normal string
2355 functions provided by Guile, such as scm_c_string_ref,
2356 scm_c_string_set_x, scm_string_append, etc. Be sure to look in the
2357 manual since many more such functions are now provided than
2360 When you want to convert a SCM string to a C string, use the
2361 scm_to_locale_string function or similar instead. For symbols, use
2362 scm_symbol_to_string and then work with that string. Because of the
2363 new string representation, scm_symbol_to_string does not need to copy
2364 and is thus quite efficient.
2366 ** Some string, symbol and keyword functions have been discouraged.
2368 They don't fit into the uniform naming scheme and are not explicit
2369 about the character encoding.
2371 Replace according to the following table:
2373 scm_allocate_string -> scm_c_make_string
2374 scm_take_str -> scm_take_locale_stringn
2375 scm_take0str -> scm_take_locale_string
2376 scm_mem2string -> scm_from_locale_stringn
2377 scm_str2string -> scm_from_locale_string
2378 scm_makfrom0str -> scm_from_locale_string
2379 scm_mem2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symboln
2380 scm_mem2uninterned_symbol -> scm_from_locale_stringn + scm_make_symbol
2381 scm_str2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symbol
2383 SCM_SYMBOL_HASH -> scm_hashq
2384 SCM_SYMBOL_INTERNED_P -> scm_symbol_interned_p
2386 scm_c_make_keyword -> scm_from_locale_keyword
2388 ** The functions scm_keyword_to_symbol and sym_symbol_to_keyword are
2389 now also available to C code.
2391 ** SCM_KEYWORDP and SCM_KEYWORDSYM have been deprecated.
2393 Use scm_is_keyword and scm_keyword_to_symbol instead, but note that
2394 the latter returns the true name of the keyword, not the 'dash name',
2395 as SCM_KEYWORDSYM used to do.
2397 ** A new way to access arrays in a thread-safe and efficient way has
2400 See the manual, node "Accessing Arrays From C".
2402 ** The old uniform vector and bitvector implementations have been
2403 unceremoniously removed.
2405 This implementation exposed the details of the tagging system of
2406 Guile. Use the new C API explained in the manual in node "Uniform
2407 Numeric Vectors" and "Bit Vectors", respectively.
2409 The following macros are gone: SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE,
2410 SCM_UVECTOR_MAXLENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_UVECTOR_TAG,
2411 SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVECTOR_P, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE,
2412 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
2413 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_BITVECTOR_TAG,
2414 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVEC_REF, SCM_BITVEC_SET,
2417 ** The macros dealing with vectors have been deprecated.
2419 Use the new functions scm_is_vector, scm_vector_elements,
2420 scm_vector_writable_elements, etc, or scm_is_simple_vector,
2421 SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_REF, SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_SET, etc instead. See the
2422 manual for more details.
2424 Deprecated are SCM_VECTORP, SCM_VELTS, SCM_VECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
2425 SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_REF, SCM_VECTOR_SET, SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS.
2427 The following macros have been removed: SCM_VECTOR_BASE,
2428 SCM_SET_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_MAKE_VECTOR_TAG, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH,
2429 SCM_VELTS_AS_STACKITEMS, SCM_SETVELTS, SCM_GC_WRITABLE_VELTS.
2431 ** Some C functions and macros related to arrays have been deprecated.
2433 Migrate according to the following table:
2435 scm_make_uve -> scm_make_typed_array, scm_make_u8vector etc.
2436 scm_make_ra -> scm_make_array
2437 scm_shap2ra -> scm_make_array
2438 scm_cvref -> scm_c_generalized_vector_ref
2439 scm_ra_set_contp -> do not use
2440 scm_aind -> scm_array_handle_pos
2441 scm_raprin1 -> scm_display or scm_write
2443 SCM_ARRAYP -> scm_is_array
2444 SCM_ARRAY_NDIM -> scm_c_array_rank
2445 SCM_ARRAY_DIMS -> scm_array_handle_dims
2446 SCM_ARRAY_CONTP -> do not use
2447 SCM_ARRAY_MEM -> do not use
2448 SCM_ARRAY_V -> scm_array_handle_elements or similar
2449 SCM_ARRAY_BASE -> do not use
2451 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
2453 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which returns a pointer
2454 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
2456 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
2457 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
2458 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
2459 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
2461 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SCM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
2463 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
2464 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
2465 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
2467 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
2468 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
2470 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
2471 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
2472 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
2473 smob word. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
2475 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and re-entries.
2477 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
2478 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
2479 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
2480 prevent a potential memory leak:
2487 scm_dynwind_begin (0);
2489 mem = scm_malloc (100);
2490 scm_dynwind_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY);
2492 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
2493 SCM_DYNWIND_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless.
2500 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY, MEM will be freed by
2501 SCM_DYNWIND_END as well.
2505 For full documentation, see the node "Dynamic Wind" in the manual.
2507 ** New function scm_dynwind_free
2509 This function calls 'free' on a given pointer when a dynwind context
2510 is left. Thus the call to scm_dynwind_unwind_handler above could be
2511 replaced with simply scm_dynwind_free (mem).
2513 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
2514 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
2516 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
2518 ** New functions scm_dynwind_block_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs
2520 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
2521 scm_dynwind_block_asyncs in a 'dynwind context' (see above). Likewise for
2522 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs.
2524 ** The macros SCM_DEFER_INTS, SCM_ALLOW_INTS, SCM_REDEFER_INTS,
2525 SCM_REALLOW_INTS have been deprecated.
2527 They do no longer fulfill their original role of blocking signal
2528 delivery. Depending on what you want to achieve, replace a pair of
2529 SCM_DEFER_INTS and SCM_ALLOW_INTS with a dynwind context that locks a
2530 mutex, blocks asyncs, or both. See node "Critical Sections" in the
2533 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
2535 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
2536 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
2537 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
2539 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
2541 C code can now use scm_dynwind_current_<foo>_port in a 'dynwind
2542 context' (see above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
2544 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
2546 C code can now use scm_dynwind_fluid in a 'dynwind context' (see
2547 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
2549 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
2551 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
2552 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
2553 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
2555 ** The functions scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed.
2557 You should not have used them.
2559 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
2561 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
2562 private or renamed with a more suitable public name.
2564 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
2566 This macro is not intended for public use.
2568 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
2570 Use scm_is_true (scm_inexact_p (...)) instead.
2572 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
2574 Use scm_is_real instead.
2576 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
2578 Use scm_is_complex instead.
2580 ** Some preprocessor defines have been deprecated.
2582 These defines indicated whether a certain feature was present in Guile
2583 or not. Going forward, assume that the features are always present.
2585 The macros are: USE_THREADS, GUILE_ISELECT, READER_EXTENSIONS,
2586 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS, DYNAMIC_LINKING.
2588 The following macros have been removed completely: MEMOIZE_LOCALS,
2589 SCM_RECKLESS, SCM_CAUTIOUS.
2591 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
2593 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
2596 ** New function: scm_effective_version
2598 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
2599 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
2600 to the distribution" above.
2602 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
2604 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
2605 arguments are now passed directly:
2607 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
2609 This is an incompatible change.
2611 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
2613 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
2614 function in the init section.
2616 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
2618 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
2620 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
2621 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
2622 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
2623 stays roughly constant.
2625 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
2626 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
2627 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
2628 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
2629 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
2632 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
2633 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
2634 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
2635 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
2637 For understanding the memory usage of a GUILE program, the routine
2638 gc-live-object-stats returns an alist containing the number of live
2639 objects for every type.
2642 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
2644 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
2646 ** The struct scm_cell type has been renamed to scm_t_cell
2648 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
2649 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
2650 initializes a new cell (see below).
2652 ** New functions for memory management
2654 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
2655 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
2656 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
2657 cause aborts in long running programs.
2659 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
2660 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
2662 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
2663 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
2664 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
2665 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
2666 details and for upgrading instructions.
2668 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
2669 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
2670 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
2672 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
2674 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
2675 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
2676 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
2677 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
2678 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
2680 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
2681 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
2682 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
2684 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
2685 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
2687 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
2689 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old
2690 macros had problems because with them allocation and initialization
2691 was separated and the GC could sometimes observe half initialized
2692 cells. Only careful coding by the user of SCM_NEWCELL and
2693 SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
2695 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
2697 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
2700 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
2702 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
2704 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
2706 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or to define macros in
2707 Scheme, using 'define-macro'.
2709 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
2711 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
2712 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
2714 ** The names scm_internal_select, scm_thread_sleep, and
2715 scm_thread_usleep have been discouraged.
2717 Use scm_std_select, scm_std_sleep, scm_std_usleep instead.
2719 ** The GC can no longer be blocked.
2721 The global flags scm_gc_heap_lock and scm_block_gc have been removed.
2722 The GC can now run (partially) concurrently with other code and thus
2723 blocking it is not well defined.
2725 ** Many definitions have been removed that were previously deprecated.
2727 scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify,
2728 scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
2729 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2,
2730 scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY,
2731 SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED,
2732 scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL,
2733 SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL,
2734 SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG,
2735 SCM_NUM_SIGS, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
2736 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
2737 scm_eval2, root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
2738 SCM_RWSTRINGP, scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring,
2739 scm_tc7_substring, sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP,
2740 SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
2741 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
2742 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
2743 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
2744 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
2745 scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern, scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
2746 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
2747 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
2748 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
2749 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
2750 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
2751 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
2752 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
2753 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
2754 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
2755 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
2756 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable,
2757 SCM_CHARS, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH.
2759 * Changes to bundled modules
2763 Using the (ice-9 debug) module no longer automatically switches Guile
2764 to use the debugging evaluator. If you want to switch to the
2765 debugging evaluator (which is needed for backtrace information if you
2766 hit an error), please add an explicit "(debug-enable 'debug)" to your
2767 code just after the code to use (ice-9 debug).
2770 Changes since Guile 1.4:
2772 * Changes to the distribution
2774 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
2776 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
2778 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
2779 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
2780 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
2781 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
2782 indicate major changes in Guile.
2784 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
2785 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
2786 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
2787 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
2789 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
2790 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
2791 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
2792 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
2793 micro version number.
2795 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
2797 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
2799 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
2800 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
2802 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
2804 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
2805 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
2806 See INSTALL and README for more information.
2808 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
2810 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
2811 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
2812 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
2815 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
2817 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
2820 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
2822 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
2823 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
2825 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
2827 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
2828 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
2831 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
2833 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
2836 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
2839 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
2841 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
2843 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
2844 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
2845 open-output-string, get-output-string.
2847 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
2849 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
2851 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
2854 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
2856 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
2858 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
2860 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
2861 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
2862 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
2864 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
2866 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
2868 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
2869 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
2878 See README there for more info.
2880 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
2881 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
2884 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
2886 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
2888 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
2890 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
2891 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
2892 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
2894 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
2896 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
2897 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
2898 to be named `and-let*', of course.
2900 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
2901 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
2903 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
2906 (oop goops describe)
2908 (oop goops active-slot)
2909 (oop goops composite-slot)
2911 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
2912 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
2913 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
2915 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
2917 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
2918 in the default environment:
2920 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
2921 %read-line write-line
2923 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
2924 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
2926 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
2928 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
2931 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
2932 can be used for similar functionality.
2934 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
2936 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
2937 it defines two procedures:
2939 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
2941 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
2942 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
2943 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
2946 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
2948 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
2949 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
2950 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
2951 write large strings.
2953 ** New module (ice-9 match)
2955 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
2956 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
2958 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
2960 for complete documentation.
2962 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
2964 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
2965 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
2966 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
2967 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
2969 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
2970 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
2974 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
2975 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
2976 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
2979 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
2982 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
2983 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
2985 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
2986 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
2989 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
2992 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
2994 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
2996 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2998 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
3000 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
3001 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
3002 Scheme programs easier.
3004 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
3005 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
3006 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
3007 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
3008 `cond-expand' when using this option.
3011 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
3012 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
3014 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
3017 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
3019 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
3020 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
3021 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
3024 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3026 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
3028 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
3029 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
3030 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
3031 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
3032 was also ASCII, for example.
3034 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
3036 tag - no replacement.
3037 fseek - replaced by seek.
3038 list* - replaced by cons*.
3040 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
3044 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
3045 (define m (make-safe-module))
3046 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
3047 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
3048 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
3050 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
3052 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
3053 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
3054 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
3056 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
3058 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
3059 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
3060 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
3061 from the issues related to the module system.
3063 *** New function: load-extension
3065 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
3067 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
3069 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
3070 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
3071 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
3073 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
3075 This function registers a initialization function for use by
3076 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
3077 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
3078 support dynamic linking).
3080 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
3082 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
3083 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
3084 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
3085 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
3088 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
3089 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
3090 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
3091 library and initialize it explicitly.
3093 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
3094 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
3096 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
3098 (define-module (foo bar))
3100 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
3102 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
3104 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
3105 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
3107 (scheme-report-environment 5)
3108 (null-environment 5)
3109 (interaction-environment)
3115 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
3117 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
3118 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
3119 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
3120 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
3122 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
3123 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
3124 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
3125 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
3126 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
3127 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
3128 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
3129 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
3130 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
3131 one eval to the next.
3133 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
3134 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
3135 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
3136 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
3137 subforms are at the top-level as well.
3139 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
3140 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
3141 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
3142 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
3143 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
3144 used in a lexical environment.
3146 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
3147 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
3148 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
3149 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
3150 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
3151 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
3153 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
3155 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
3156 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
3157 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
3158 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
3159 new facilities: selection and renaming.
3161 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
3162 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
3163 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
3165 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
3166 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
3168 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
3169 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
3170 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
3172 (remove-if . zonk-y)
3173 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
3175 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
3176 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
3177 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
3178 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
3181 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
3182 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
3183 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
3184 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
3186 (remove-if . zonk-y)
3187 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
3188 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
3190 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
3191 ;; and all four by upcasing.
3192 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
3193 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
3194 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
3196 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
3198 (remove-if . zonk-y)
3199 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
3200 :renamer upcase-symbol))
3202 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
3203 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
3204 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
3206 See manual for more info.
3208 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
3210 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
3211 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
3212 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
3214 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
3216 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
3217 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
3218 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
3220 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
3221 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
3222 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
3223 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
3225 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
3227 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
3228 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
3230 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
3231 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
3232 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
3233 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
3234 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
3237 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
3238 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
3239 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
3240 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
3241 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
3242 successful and #f if it wasn't.
3244 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
3245 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
3246 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
3247 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
3248 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
3250 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
3251 objects are usually permanent.
3253 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
3254 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
3256 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
3258 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
3259 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
3262 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
3266 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
3271 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
3273 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
3274 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
3275 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
3276 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
3278 ** New function `make-object-property'
3280 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
3281 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
3285 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
3286 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
3290 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
3291 source properties eventually.
3293 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
3295 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
3296 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
3297 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
3299 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
3300 will be removed in the next release.
3302 ** New define-module option: pure
3304 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
3309 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
3312 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
3314 Export names NAME1 ...
3316 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
3317 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
3321 (define-module (foo)
3323 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
3326 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
3331 ** New function: object->string OBJ
3333 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
3335 ** New function: port? X
3337 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
3338 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
3340 ** New function: file-port?
3342 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
3344 ** New function: port-for-each proc
3346 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
3347 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
3348 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
3349 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
3350 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
3352 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
3354 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
3355 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
3356 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
3357 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
3358 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
3361 ** New function: close-fdes fd
3363 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
3364 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
3365 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
3366 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
3369 ** New function: crypt password salt
3371 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
3374 ** New function: chroot path
3376 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
3378 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
3380 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
3383 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
3385 Get or set the priority of the running process.
3387 ** New function: getpass prompt
3389 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
3392 ** New function: flock file operation
3394 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
3396 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
3398 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
3401 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
3403 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
3404 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
3405 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
3406 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
3407 of the temporary file.
3409 ** New function: open-input-string string
3411 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
3412 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
3413 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
3415 ** New function: open-output-string
3417 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
3418 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
3420 ** New function: get-output-string
3422 Return the contents of an output string port.
3424 ** New function: identity
3426 Return the argument.
3428 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
3429 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
3431 ** New function: inet-pton family address
3433 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
3434 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
3435 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
3438 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
3439 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
3441 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
3443 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
3444 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
3445 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
3448 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
3449 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
3450 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
3454 Use `identity' instead.
3460 ** Deprecated: return-it
3464 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
3466 Use `string-length' instead.
3468 ** Deprecated: flags
3470 Use `logior' instead.
3472 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
3474 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
3475 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
3476 port-for-each is more flexible.
3478 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
3479 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
3480 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
3482 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
3484 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
3486 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
3488 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
3490 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
3492 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
3493 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
3495 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
3496 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
3498 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
3499 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
3501 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
3503 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
3504 Removed function: builtin-bindings
3506 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
3507 Use module system operations for all variables.
3509 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
3511 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
3514 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
3516 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
3517 The following bugs have been fixed:
3519 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
3520 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
3523 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
3524 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
3525 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
3527 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
3528 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
3530 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
3531 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
3534 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
3535 The expansion used to be like so:
3537 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
3539 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
3541 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
3543 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
3544 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
3546 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
3548 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
3549 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
3550 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
3554 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
3555 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
3557 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
3562 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
3563 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
3565 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
3566 and `d', other keywords allowed.
3567 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
3569 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
3572 * Changes to the C interface
3574 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
3576 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
3577 with "_t". What a concept.
3579 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
3581 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
3583 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
3587 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
3588 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
3590 *** C Functions removed
3592 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
3593 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
3594 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
3595 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
3596 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
3597 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
3598 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
3600 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
3602 Use scm_mem2string instead.
3604 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
3606 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
3608 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
3609 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
3611 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
3613 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
3616 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
3618 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
3620 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
3622 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
3623 Evaluation" in the manual.
3625 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
3627 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
3628 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
3630 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
3632 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
3633 Constructors" in the manual.
3635 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
3637 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
3638 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
3640 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
3642 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
3644 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
3645 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
3646 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
3648 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
3650 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
3652 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
3653 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
3654 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
3657 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
3659 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
3661 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
3662 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
3664 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
3666 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
3667 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
3668 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
3669 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
3671 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
3672 scm_primitive_property_ref
3673 scm_primitive_property_set_x
3674 scm_primitive_property_del_x
3676 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
3677 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
3679 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
3681 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
3682 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
3683 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
3684 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
3686 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
3688 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
3689 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
3690 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
3691 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
3692 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
3693 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
3694 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
3696 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
3697 scm_remember_upto_here
3699 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
3701 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
3703 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
3704 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
3706 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
3708 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
3710 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
3712 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
3714 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
3716 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
3717 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
3718 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
3719 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
3720 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
3721 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
3723 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
3725 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
3727 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
3728 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
3729 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
3731 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
3733 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
3734 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
3735 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
3737 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
3739 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
3740 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
3743 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
3746 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
3747 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
3750 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
3752 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
3754 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
3756 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
3758 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
3760 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
3762 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
3763 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
3764 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
3765 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
3766 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
3767 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
3768 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
3769 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
3770 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
3771 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
3772 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
3773 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
3774 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
3775 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
3776 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
3778 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
3779 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
3780 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
3781 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
3782 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
3783 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
3784 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
3785 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
3786 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
3787 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
3788 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
3789 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
3790 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
3791 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
3792 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
3793 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
3794 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
3795 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
3796 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
3797 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
3798 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
3799 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
3800 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
3801 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
3802 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
3803 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
3804 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
3805 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
3806 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
3808 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
3810 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
3812 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
3813 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
3815 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
3817 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
3819 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
3821 Use scm_string_hash instead.
3823 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
3825 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
3827 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
3829 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
3831 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
3834 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
3835 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
3837 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
3839 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
3841 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
3843 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
3845 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
3847 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
3849 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
3851 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
3854 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
3856 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
3858 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
3860 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
3861 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
3863 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
3864 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
3866 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
3868 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
3869 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
3870 scm_module_define, scm_define.
3872 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
3874 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
3876 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
3877 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
3879 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
3880 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
3881 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
3882 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
3884 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
3885 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
3886 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
3888 Use the new ones from above instead.
3890 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
3892 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
3893 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
3894 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
3896 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
3897 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
3899 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
3900 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
3903 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
3904 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
3906 Use the new functions instead.
3908 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
3911 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
3913 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
3915 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
3918 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
3920 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
3923 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
3925 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
3928 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
3929 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
3930 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
3932 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
3934 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
3935 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
3937 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
3938 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
3939 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
3940 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
3943 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
3945 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
3946 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
3947 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
3948 inexact for an exact.
3950 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
3951 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
3952 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
3955 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
3956 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
3957 accept an inexact argument.
3959 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
3960 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
3962 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
3965 ** New number validation macros:
3966 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
3970 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
3972 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
3973 scm_unprotect_object.
3975 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
3977 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
3979 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
3982 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
3984 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
3988 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
3990 * Changes to the distribution
3992 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
3994 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
3995 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
3996 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
3997 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
3998 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
3999 obtain these programs.
4000 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
4001 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
4003 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
4004 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
4005 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
4006 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
4007 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
4009 However, this approach means that minor differences between
4010 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
4011 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
4012 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
4016 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
4019 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
4020 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
4021 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
4022 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
4024 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
4026 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
4028 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
4029 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
4031 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
4032 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
4034 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
4035 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
4037 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
4038 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
4039 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
4040 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
4042 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
4044 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
4048 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
4049 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
4051 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
4053 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
4054 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
4056 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
4057 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
4058 number of objects of that kind.
4060 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
4062 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
4063 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
4064 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
4065 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
4066 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
4068 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
4070 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
4072 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
4074 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
4077 ** New module (ice-9 time)
4079 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
4081 ** New module (ice-9 history)
4083 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
4085 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4087 ** New command line option --debug
4089 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
4091 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
4093 ** New help facility
4095 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
4096 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
4097 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
4098 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
4099 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
4100 (help) gives this text
4102 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
4103 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
4105 Examples: (help help)
4107 (help "output-string")
4109 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
4111 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
4113 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
4114 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
4117 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
4118 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
4119 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
4122 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
4123 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
4124 use absolute filenames when possible.
4126 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
4127 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
4128 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
4131 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
4133 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
4134 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
4135 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
4136 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
4138 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
4140 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
4142 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
4143 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
4144 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
4146 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
4147 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
4148 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
4150 (read-enable 'positions)
4151 (debug-enable 'debug)
4153 ** Backtraces in scripts
4155 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
4159 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
4161 at the top of the script.
4163 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
4164 The second enables backtraces.)
4166 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
4168 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
4169 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
4170 substantially faster than before.
4172 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
4173 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
4175 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
4176 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
4178 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
4180 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
4181 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
4182 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
4184 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
4185 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
4186 when this hook is run in the future.
4188 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
4189 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
4191 ** Improvements to garbage collector
4193 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
4194 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
4197 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
4198 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
4199 more and more memory for certain programs.)
4201 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
4202 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
4204 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
4205 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
4207 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
4208 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
4209 in order not to need further allocation.)
4211 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
4214 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
4215 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
4216 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
4217 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
4219 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
4221 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
4224 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
4226 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
4229 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
4230 GC in percent of total heap size
4233 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
4234 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
4236 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
4238 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
4239 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
4241 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
4243 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
4244 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
4246 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
4248 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
4249 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
4253 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
4254 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
4256 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
4258 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4260 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
4262 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
4264 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
4266 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
4267 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
4269 (simple-format port message . args)
4270 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
4271 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
4272 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
4273 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
4274 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
4275 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
4276 Does not add a trailing newline."
4278 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
4280 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
4281 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
4283 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
4284 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
4286 ** Deprecated: list*
4288 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
4290 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
4292 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
4293 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
4295 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
4296 is returned as result.
4298 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
4300 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
4302 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
4304 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
4305 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
4308 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
4310 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
4312 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
4313 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
4315 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4317 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
4319 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
4321 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4323 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
4325 Thanks to Greg Badros!
4327 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
4329 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
4330 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
4331 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
4333 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
4336 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
4338 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
4339 the readability of argument checking.
4341 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
4343 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
4345 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
4347 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
4348 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
4349 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
4350 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
4351 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
4352 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
4353 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
4355 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
4357 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
4359 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
4360 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
4362 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
4364 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
4365 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
4368 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
4370 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
4371 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
4372 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
4374 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
4375 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
4376 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
4378 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
4379 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
4380 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
4381 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
4382 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
4383 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
4384 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
4386 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
4387 scm_end_input (object);
4388 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
4389 ptob->flush (object);
4391 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
4392 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
4395 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
4397 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
4399 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
4400 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
4401 removed in a future version.
4403 ** The format of error message strings has changed
4405 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
4406 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
4407 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
4408 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
4410 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
4411 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
4413 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
4416 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
4418 in your configure.in.
4420 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
4425 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
4431 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
4433 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
4437 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
4438 (define make-message string-append)
4440 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
4442 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
4446 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
4451 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
4455 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
4457 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
4458 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
4460 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
4462 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
4463 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
4464 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
4465 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
4466 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
4467 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
4469 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
4470 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
4471 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
4473 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
4474 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
4475 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
4478 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
4479 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
4480 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
4481 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
4482 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
4484 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
4485 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
4486 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
4487 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
4488 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
4489 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
4490 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
4492 Destructors are not yet implemented.
4494 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
4495 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
4496 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
4498 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
4499 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
4500 KEY in the calling thread.
4502 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
4503 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
4504 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
4505 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
4506 associated with the key.
4508 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
4510 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
4511 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
4513 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
4515 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
4516 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
4517 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
4519 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
4521 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
4522 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
4524 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
4526 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
4528 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
4529 returned is undefined.
4531 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
4532 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
4533 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
4535 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
4536 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
4537 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
4539 ** New C level GC hooks
4541 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
4543 scm_before_gc_c_hook
4546 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
4547 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
4548 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
4550 scm_before_mark_c_hook
4551 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
4552 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
4554 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
4555 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
4558 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
4560 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
4561 allocation parameters
4563 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
4564 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
4565 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
4569 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
4570 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
4571 scm_default_max_segment_size
4573 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
4575 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
4576 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
4578 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
4580 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
4581 object and count on the object being protected until
4582 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
4584 The functions also have better time complexity.
4586 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
4587 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
4588 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
4589 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
4590 are no longer needed.
4592 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
4594 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
4595 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
4596 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
4597 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
4599 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
4601 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
4603 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
4605 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
4606 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
4607 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
4608 until this issue has been settled.
4610 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
4612 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
4614 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
4617 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
4619 * Changes to system call interfaces:
4621 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
4622 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
4623 descriptors were checked.
4625 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
4626 atomically written to a pipe.
4628 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
4629 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
4630 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
4631 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
4632 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
4633 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
4634 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
4637 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
4638 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
4639 is changed without calling tzset.
4641 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
4643 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
4644 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
4645 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
4647 (define write-network-long
4648 (lambda (value port)
4649 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
4650 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
4651 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
4653 (define read-network-long
4655 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
4656 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
4657 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
4659 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
4660 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
4662 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
4663 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
4664 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
4665 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
4667 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
4668 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
4669 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
4670 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
4674 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
4676 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4680 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
4681 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
4682 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
4688 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
4689 for a description of available commands.
4691 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
4692 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
4693 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
4695 (debug-enable 'backwards)
4697 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
4698 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
4700 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
4702 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
4704 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
4705 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
4706 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
4707 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
4708 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
4709 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
4712 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
4714 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
4715 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
4716 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
4717 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
4719 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
4720 the file and should not be affected by this change.
4722 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
4724 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4726 ** Readline support has changed again.
4728 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
4729 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
4730 to activate readline is now
4732 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
4735 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
4737 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
4738 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
4739 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
4742 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
4743 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
4744 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
4747 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
4748 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
4749 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
4750 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
4751 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
4752 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
4754 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
4755 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
4757 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
4759 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
4760 object it receives is the same string passed to
4761 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
4762 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
4763 string, not the suffix.
4765 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
4766 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
4767 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
4769 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
4771 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
4772 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
4773 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
4774 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
4777 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
4779 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
4781 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
4782 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
4783 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
4784 appear from left to right.
4786 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
4789 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
4791 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
4792 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
4794 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
4798 *** New function: hook? OBJ
4800 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
4802 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
4804 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
4805 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
4806 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
4808 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
4810 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
4812 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
4814 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
4817 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
4819 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
4820 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
4821 mentioning it here anyway.
4823 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
4825 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
4826 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
4827 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
4828 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
4831 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
4833 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
4835 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
4837 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
4838 otherwise return #f.
4840 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
4842 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
4843 returned by `opendir'.
4845 ** New function: using-readline?
4847 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
4849 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
4851 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
4852 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
4854 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4856 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
4858 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
4859 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
4860 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
4862 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
4864 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
4865 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
4867 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
4869 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
4870 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
4871 documentation slots are not yet used.
4873 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
4875 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
4876 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
4877 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
4882 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
4883 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
4884 (string-append x y))
4886 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
4887 can also be used for concatenating strings.
4889 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
4890 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
4891 be made in a clean way.]
4893 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
4895 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
4897 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
4899 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
4900 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
4902 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
4904 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
4906 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
4908 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
4910 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
4911 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
4912 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
4913 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
4916 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
4918 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
4920 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
4922 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
4924 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
4925 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
4927 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
4929 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
4931 Evaluates the body of a special form.
4933 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
4935 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
4936 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
4937 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
4938 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
4939 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
4940 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
4942 This should not make any difference for most users.
4944 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
4946 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
4947 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
4949 *** New functions for applying generic functions
4951 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
4952 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
4953 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
4954 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
4955 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
4957 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
4959 It is now replaced by:
4961 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
4963 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
4964 binds a variable named NAME to it.
4966 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
4968 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
4969 This might change when we get the new module system.
4971 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
4975 Changes since Guile 1.3:
4977 * Changes to mailing lists
4979 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
4981 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
4984 * Changes to the distribution
4986 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
4988 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
4989 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
4990 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
4991 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
4992 you explicitly specify it.
4994 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
4995 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
4996 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
4997 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
4998 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
5001 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
5002 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
5003 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
5004 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
5006 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
5007 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
5008 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
5011 You can activate the readline support by issuing
5013 (use-modules (readline-activator))
5016 from your ".guile" file, for example.
5018 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5020 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
5021 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
5022 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
5023 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
5025 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
5026 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
5029 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5031 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
5032 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
5033 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
5034 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
5035 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
5036 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
5037 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
5038 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
5050 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
5051 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
5052 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
5053 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
5054 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
5059 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
5060 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
5068 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
5073 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
5074 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
5077 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
5078 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
5079 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
5080 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
5082 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
5084 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
5086 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
5087 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
5089 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
5091 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
5093 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
5094 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
5096 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
5099 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
5101 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
5103 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
5105 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
5107 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
5109 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
5111 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
5112 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
5113 when the hook was created.
5115 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
5116 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
5117 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
5118 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
5119 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
5120 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
5121 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
5122 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
5123 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
5125 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
5126 the dlopen family of functions.
5128 ** New function `provided?'
5130 - Function: provided? FEATURE
5131 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
5132 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
5133 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
5135 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
5137 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
5138 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
5139 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
5140 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
5143 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
5144 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
5145 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
5146 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
5148 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
5149 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
5150 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
5153 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
5154 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
5155 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
5156 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
5157 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
5158 but with the flag set.
5160 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
5162 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
5163 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
5165 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
5166 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
5167 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
5168 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
5169 available Scheme format implementations.
5171 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
5172 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
5173 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
5174 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
5175 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
5176 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
5177 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
5178 output is to the current error port if available by the
5179 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
5182 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
5183 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
5184 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
5185 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
5186 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
5187 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
5188 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
5189 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
5191 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
5192 be executed at a time.
5195 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
5197 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
5198 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
5199 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
5201 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
5202 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
5203 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
5204 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
5205 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
5206 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
5207 general form of a directive is:
5209 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
5211 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
5213 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
5215 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
5216 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
5217 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
5220 Any (print as `display' does).
5224 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
5228 S-expression (print as `write' does).
5232 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
5238 print number sign always.
5241 print comma separated.
5243 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
5249 print number sign always.
5252 print comma separated.
5254 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
5260 print number sign always.
5263 print comma separated.
5265 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
5271 print number sign always.
5274 print comma separated.
5276 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
5281 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
5285 print a number as a Roman numeral.
5288 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
5291 print a number as an ordinal English number.
5294 print a number as a cardinal English number.
5299 prints `y' and `ies'.
5302 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
5305 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
5310 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
5314 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
5317 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
5318 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
5320 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
5323 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
5324 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
5326 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
5329 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
5331 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
5333 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
5336 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
5338 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
5340 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
5343 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
5346 The sign appears before the padding.
5354 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
5356 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
5361 print N page separators.
5371 newline is ignored, white space left.
5374 newline is left, white space ignored.
5379 relative tabulation.
5385 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
5387 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
5390 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
5392 converts by `string-capitalize'.
5395 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
5398 converts by `string-upcase'.
5401 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
5403 jumps N arguments forward.
5406 jumps 1 argument backward.
5409 jumps N arguments backward.
5412 jumps to the 0th argument.
5415 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
5417 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
5418 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
5420 take argument from N.
5423 true test conditional.
5426 if-else-then conditional.
5432 default clause follows.
5435 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
5437 at most N iterations.
5440 args from next arg (a list of lists).
5443 args from the rest of arguments.
5446 args from the rest args (lists).
5457 aborts if N <= M <= K
5459 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
5462 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
5465 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
5471 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
5473 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
5475 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
5476 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
5477 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
5478 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
5479 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
5480 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
5484 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
5488 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
5494 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
5497 Print a `#\space' character
5499 print N `#\space' characters.
5502 Print a `#\tab' character
5504 print N `#\tab' characters.
5507 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
5508 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
5509 must be a positive decimal number.
5512 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
5513 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
5514 be processed by `read'.
5517 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
5518 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
5519 be processed by `read'.
5522 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
5525 prints format version.
5528 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
5529 and format it accordingly.
5531 *** Configuration Variables
5533 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
5534 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
5535 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
5536 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
5539 format:symbol-case-conv
5540 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
5541 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
5542 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
5543 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
5544 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
5546 format:iobj-case-conv
5547 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
5548 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
5551 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
5554 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
5560 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
5561 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
5562 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
5563 `format' padding style.
5566 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
5567 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
5568 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
5569 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
5573 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
5574 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
5575 directive parameters or modifiers)).
5578 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
5579 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
5580 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
5581 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
5582 parameters or modifiers)).
5585 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
5587 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
5589 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
5590 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
5592 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
5593 string-downcase! functions.
5595 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
5596 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
5598 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
5601 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
5604 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
5605 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
5607 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
5609 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
5610 the symbol had be read by `read'.
5612 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
5613 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
5614 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
5615 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
5616 would if STRING were input.
5618 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
5620 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
5621 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
5622 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
5623 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
5626 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
5628 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
5629 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
5632 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
5634 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
5635 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
5637 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
5638 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
5640 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
5641 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
5642 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
5643 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
5645 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
5646 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
5648 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
5649 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
5650 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
5652 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
5653 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
5655 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
5656 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
5657 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
5658 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
5659 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
5661 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
5662 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
5663 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
5664 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
5665 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
5666 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
5668 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
5669 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
5670 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
5673 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
5674 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
5675 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
5676 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
5677 the following grammar:
5678 ((apples (single-char #\a))
5679 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
5680 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
5681 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
5682 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
5683 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
5684 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
5685 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
5686 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
5687 last option in its combination)
5689 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
5690 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
5691 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
5692 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
5694 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
5695 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
5696 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
5698 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
5699 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
5700 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
5702 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
5703 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
5704 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
5705 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
5706 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
5707 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
5708 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
5709 ordinary argument strings.
5711 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
5712 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
5713 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
5714 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
5716 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
5717 as a list, associated with the empty list.
5719 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
5720 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
5721 - a required option is omitted
5722 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
5723 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
5724 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
5725 - an option predicate fails
5730 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
5733 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
5734 (verbose (required? #f)
5737 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
5738 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
5739 (predicate ,string?))))
5741 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
5742 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
5744 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
5745 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
5746 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
5747 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
5750 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
5752 It will be removed in a few releases.
5754 ** New syntax: lambda*
5755 ** New syntax: define*
5756 ** New syntax: define*-public
5757 ** New syntax: defmacro*
5758 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
5759 Guile now supports optional arguments.
5761 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
5762 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
5763 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
5764 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
5765 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
5767 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
5768 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
5769 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
5771 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
5773 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
5774 and examples for `lambda*':
5777 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
5779 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
5780 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
5781 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
5782 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
5783 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
5784 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
5785 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
5786 can be checked with the bound? macro.
5788 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
5790 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
5791 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
5792 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
5793 are given as keywords are bound to values.
5795 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
5796 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
5797 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
5798 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
5799 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
5800 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
5801 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
5802 and until the procedure is called.
5804 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
5806 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
5807 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
5808 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
5809 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
5810 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
5811 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
5812 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
5813 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
5814 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
5815 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
5817 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
5818 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
5819 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
5820 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
5823 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
5825 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
5826 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
5827 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
5828 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
5830 ** New syntax: and-let*
5831 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
5833 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
5834 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
5835 (<variable> <expression>)
5838 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
5839 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
5840 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
5843 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
5844 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
5845 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
5846 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
5847 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
5848 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
5849 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
5851 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
5852 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
5853 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
5854 shadow earlier bindings.
5856 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
5858 ** New sorting functions
5860 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
5861 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
5862 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
5863 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
5865 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
5866 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
5869 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
5870 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
5871 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
5873 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
5874 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
5875 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
5876 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
5878 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
5879 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
5880 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
5881 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
5882 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
5885 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
5886 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
5887 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
5888 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
5889 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
5890 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
5892 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
5893 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
5894 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
5896 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
5897 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
5898 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
5901 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
5902 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
5903 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
5905 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
5906 Added for compatibility with scsh.
5908 ** New built-in random number support
5910 *** New function: random N [STATE]
5911 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
5912 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
5913 returned have a uniform distribution.
5915 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
5916 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
5917 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
5918 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
5919 effect of the `random' operation.
5921 *** New variable: *random-state*
5922 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
5923 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
5924 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
5925 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
5926 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
5929 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
5930 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
5931 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
5932 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
5933 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
5935 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
5936 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
5937 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
5938 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
5939 initialized using SEED.
5941 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
5942 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
5943 range between 0 and 1.
5945 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
5946 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
5947 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
5948 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
5949 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
5950 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
5951 or a uniform vector of doubles.
5953 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
5954 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
5955 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
5956 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
5957 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
5958 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
5960 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
5961 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
5962 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
5963 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
5965 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
5966 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
5967 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
5968 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
5970 *** New function: random:exp STATE
5971 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
5972 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
5974 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
5976 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
5979 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
5980 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
5983 ** New function: make-guardian
5984 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
5985 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
5986 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
5987 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
5988 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
5990 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
5991 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
5992 one object if at all.
5994 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
5995 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
5996 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
5998 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
5999 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
6000 read again in last-in first-out order.
6002 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
6003 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
6005 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
6007 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
6008 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
6009 file position is used.
6011 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
6012 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
6013 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
6015 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
6016 redefined using seek.
6018 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
6019 size is not supplied.
6021 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
6022 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
6024 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
6025 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
6027 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
6029 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
6030 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
6031 and returns the contents as a single string.
6033 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
6034 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
6035 lists in serial order.
6037 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
6038 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
6039 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
6041 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
6042 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
6043 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
6044 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
6046 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
6047 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
6048 and #f if an error occured.
6050 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
6052 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
6053 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
6054 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
6055 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
6057 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
6059 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
6062 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
6064 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
6067 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6071 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
6072 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
6074 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
6075 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
6079 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6081 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
6083 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
6084 binds a variable named NAME to it.
6086 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
6088 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
6089 might change when we get the new module system.
6091 ** The smob interface
6093 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
6094 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
6096 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
6098 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
6102 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
6103 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
6104 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
6105 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
6106 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
6107 will be freed by the default free function.
6109 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
6110 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
6111 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
6112 `scm_make_smob_type'.
6114 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
6115 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
6116 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
6117 `scm_make_smob_type'.
6119 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
6121 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
6122 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
6126 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
6127 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
6128 `scm_make_smob_type'.
6130 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
6131 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
6132 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
6133 `scm_make_smob_type'.
6135 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
6136 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
6137 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
6139 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
6140 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
6141 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
6142 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
6144 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
6145 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
6146 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
6148 *** scm_newptob has been removed
6152 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
6154 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
6155 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
6156 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
6158 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
6159 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
6160 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
6162 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
6163 a string port's buffer.
6165 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
6166 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
6167 function pointers which together define the current random number
6168 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
6169 number library functions.
6171 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
6174 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
6175 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
6178 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
6179 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
6181 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
6182 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
6184 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
6185 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
6188 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
6189 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
6190 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
6191 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
6193 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
6194 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
6195 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
6196 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
6197 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
6198 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
6199 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
6201 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
6202 by libguile and the application.
6204 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
6205 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
6206 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
6207 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
6209 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
6210 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
6212 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
6213 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
6214 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
6216 ** Random number library functions
6217 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
6218 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
6219 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
6221 The default random state is stored in:
6223 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
6224 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
6225 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
6230 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
6232 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
6233 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
6234 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
6235 isn't a random state.
6237 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
6238 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
6240 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
6241 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
6242 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
6243 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
6245 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
6246 Return 32 random bits.
6248 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
6249 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
6251 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
6252 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
6254 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
6255 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
6257 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
6258 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
6260 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
6261 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
6262 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
6266 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
6268 * Changes to the distribution
6270 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
6271 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
6272 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
6275 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
6276 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
6277 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
6279 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
6280 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
6281 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
6282 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
6285 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
6286 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
6287 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
6289 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
6291 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
6293 *** Function: batch-mode?
6295 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
6298 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
6300 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
6301 case has not been implemented.
6303 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
6304 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
6305 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
6308 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
6309 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
6311 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
6313 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
6315 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
6317 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
6318 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
6321 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
6322 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
6323 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
6324 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
6327 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
6329 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
6330 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
6331 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
6332 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
6333 find those libraries.
6335 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
6336 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
6339 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
6341 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
6342 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
6343 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
6344 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
6346 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
6347 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
6348 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
6352 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
6354 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
6355 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
6356 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
6359 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
6360 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
6361 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
6362 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
6364 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
6365 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
6368 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
6369 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
6370 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
6371 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
6372 compiler where to find the libraries.
6374 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
6375 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
6376 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
6378 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
6379 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
6380 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
6381 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
6382 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
6386 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
6388 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
6389 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
6390 internationalization support.
6392 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
6393 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
6394 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
6395 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
6396 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
6398 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
6399 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
6400 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
6401 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
6402 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
6404 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
6405 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
6406 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
6407 any GNU mirror site.
6409 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
6411 ** New function: add-history STRING
6412 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
6413 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
6414 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
6416 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
6418 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
6419 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
6420 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
6423 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
6424 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
6425 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
6427 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
6429 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
6432 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
6433 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
6436 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
6437 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
6438 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
6439 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
6440 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
6441 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
6443 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
6444 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
6445 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
6446 of the form mentioned above.
6448 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
6449 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
6450 returned in the special `rest' list.
6452 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
6453 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
6455 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
6457 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
6459 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
6461 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
6462 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
6463 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
6464 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
6465 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
6466 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
6467 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
6468 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
6471 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
6473 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
6475 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
6476 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
6479 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
6480 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
6481 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
6485 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
6486 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
6487 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
6488 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
6489 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
6490 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
6491 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
6492 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
6495 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
6497 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
6498 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
6499 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
6501 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
6503 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
6504 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
6506 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
6507 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
6508 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
6510 Why do we have this function?
6511 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
6512 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
6513 primitive, and display it differently, and
6514 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
6515 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
6518 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
6519 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
6522 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
6523 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
6524 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
6525 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
6527 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
6528 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
6531 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
6532 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
6534 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
6536 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
6537 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
6538 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
6539 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
6540 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
6541 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
6542 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
6545 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
6547 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
6548 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
6550 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
6551 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
6552 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
6553 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
6554 properly continue the print chain.
6556 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
6557 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
6558 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
6559 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
6560 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
6561 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
6562 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
6563 print-state, it is simply ignored.
6565 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
6566 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
6567 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
6568 safest to not check for these pairs.
6570 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
6571 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
6572 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
6573 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
6575 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
6577 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
6578 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
6580 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
6582 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
6584 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
6585 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
6586 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
6588 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
6589 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
6590 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
6592 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
6593 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
6594 the following functions and macros:
6596 Function: make-fluid
6598 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
6599 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
6600 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
6601 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
6602 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
6604 Function: fluid? OBJ
6606 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
6608 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
6609 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
6611 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
6612 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
6614 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
6616 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
6617 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
6618 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
6619 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
6620 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
6621 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
6622 modified by `with-fluids*'.
6624 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
6626 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
6627 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
6628 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
6629 should evaluate to a fluid.
6631 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
6633 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
6634 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
6635 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
6636 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
6637 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
6639 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
6642 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
6644 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
6646 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
6648 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
6651 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
6652 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
6653 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
6654 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
6655 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
6658 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
6659 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
6660 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
6662 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
6663 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
6664 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
6666 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
6667 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
6668 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
6669 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
6671 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
6672 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
6673 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
6674 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
6676 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
6677 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
6678 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
6679 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
6681 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
6682 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
6683 their revealed counts set to zero.
6685 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
6686 Returns an integer file descriptor.
6688 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
6689 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
6691 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
6692 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
6694 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
6695 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
6696 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
6698 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
6699 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
6700 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
6702 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
6703 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
6704 default environment inherited by child processes.
6706 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
6707 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
6708 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
6710 The return value is unspecified.
6712 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
6713 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
6714 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
6715 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
6716 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
6718 The return value is unspecified.
6720 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
6721 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
6729 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
6730 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
6733 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
6736 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
6737 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
6738 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
6740 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
6741 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
6742 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
6743 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
6746 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
6747 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
6749 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
6750 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
6751 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
6752 the `environ' procedure.
6754 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
6755 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
6758 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
6759 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
6761 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
6762 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
6763 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
6764 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
6766 *** procedure: times
6767 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
6768 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
6769 return a selected component:
6772 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
6776 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
6779 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
6783 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
6784 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
6788 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
6789 terminated child processes.
6791 ** Removed: list-length
6792 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
6793 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
6795 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
6797 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
6799 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
6801 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
6802 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
6803 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
6804 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
6806 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
6807 extra complexity it introduces.
6809 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
6810 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
6812 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
6813 variable to any non-empty value.
6815 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
6816 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
6818 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6820 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
6821 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
6823 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
6825 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
6826 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
6828 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
6830 ** vector handling routines
6832 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
6833 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
6834 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
6835 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
6836 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
6838 ** pair and list routines
6840 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
6843 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
6845 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
6848 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6850 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
6852 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
6853 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
6854 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
6855 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
6856 site-specific initialization code.
6858 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
6859 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
6860 initialization processes.
6862 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
6863 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
6864 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
6865 initialized properly.
6867 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
6868 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
6869 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
6871 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
6872 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
6873 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
6874 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
6875 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
6877 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
6879 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
6880 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
6881 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
6882 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
6883 objects the smob refers to get marked.
6885 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
6886 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
6887 which look like this:
6890 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
6892 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
6893 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
6896 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
6897 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
6900 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
6902 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
6903 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
6904 you will need to change your functions slightly.
6906 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
6907 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
6908 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
6909 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
6910 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
6912 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
6913 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
6915 int (*free) (SCM port);
6916 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
6917 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
6918 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
6922 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
6923 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
6924 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
6926 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
6929 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
6930 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
6931 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
6933 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
6934 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
6935 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
6938 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
6942 struct timeval *timeout);
6944 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
6945 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
6946 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
6947 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
6948 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
6949 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
6951 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
6952 scm_catch_body_t body,
6954 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
6957 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
6958 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
6959 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
6960 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
6961 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
6962 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
6964 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
6966 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
6969 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
6970 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
6971 spawning threads from application C code.
6973 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
6974 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
6975 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
6976 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
6977 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
6978 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
6980 ** Removed functions:
6982 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
6983 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
6985 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
6987 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
6988 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
6990 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
6992 ** mbstrings are now removed
6994 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
6995 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
6997 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
6999 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
7000 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
7001 their new names and arguments:
7003 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
7004 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
7005 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
7006 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
7009 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
7011 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
7013 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
7016 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
7018 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
7019 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
7020 pass a #f arg to catch.
7022 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
7024 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
7025 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
7028 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
7029 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
7030 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
7031 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
7032 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
7033 reclaim its storage.
7035 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
7036 worrying that some other function you call will call
7037 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
7038 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
7039 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
7040 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
7043 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
7045 * Changes to the distribution
7047 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
7048 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
7051 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
7052 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
7054 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
7055 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
7057 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
7059 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
7060 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
7061 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
7063 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
7065 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
7066 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
7067 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
7068 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
7069 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
7070 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
7072 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
7073 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
7074 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
7077 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
7078 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
7079 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
7080 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
7082 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
7083 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
7084 libraries to your link command:
7086 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
7087 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
7088 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
7089 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
7091 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
7092 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
7093 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
7095 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
7097 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
7098 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
7101 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
7103 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
7104 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
7105 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
7106 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
7107 searched is system dependent.
7109 (dynamic-object? VAL)
7111 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
7113 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
7115 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
7116 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
7118 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
7120 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
7121 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
7122 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
7123 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
7124 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
7127 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
7129 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
7130 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
7131 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
7132 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
7133 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
7135 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
7137 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
7138 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
7140 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
7142 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
7143 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
7144 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
7147 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
7149 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
7150 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
7151 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
7152 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
7154 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
7155 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
7157 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
7159 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
7160 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
7162 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
7164 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
7165 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
7173 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
7175 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
7176 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
7177 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
7178 a more informative way.
7180 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
7181 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
7182 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
7183 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
7184 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
7185 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
7187 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
7188 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
7191 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
7192 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
7193 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
7196 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
7197 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
7198 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
7199 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
7200 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
7201 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
7203 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
7204 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
7205 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
7206 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
7209 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
7210 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
7211 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
7212 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
7213 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
7214 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
7216 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
7217 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
7218 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
7219 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
7220 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
7222 *** regexp functions
7224 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
7225 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
7226 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
7228 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
7229 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
7230 with SCSH regular expressions.
7232 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
7233 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
7234 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
7235 position of STR at which to begin matching.
7237 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
7238 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
7239 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
7240 `string-match' returns `#f'.
7242 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
7243 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
7244 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
7245 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
7246 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
7247 match strings against the compiled regexp.
7249 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
7250 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
7251 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
7252 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
7253 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
7255 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
7257 **** Constant: regexp/extended
7258 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
7259 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
7260 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
7262 **** Constant: regexp/icase
7263 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
7264 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
7266 **** Constant: regexp/newline
7267 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
7269 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
7272 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
7273 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
7274 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
7276 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
7277 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
7278 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
7280 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
7281 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
7282 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
7283 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
7284 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
7287 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
7289 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
7290 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
7291 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
7292 used when different portions of a string are passed to
7293 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
7294 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
7296 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
7297 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
7298 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
7300 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
7301 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
7304 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
7305 and replace them with the contents of another string.
7307 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
7308 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
7309 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
7310 may be one of the following arguments:
7312 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
7314 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
7316 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
7317 the regexp match is written.
7319 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
7320 following the regexp match is written.
7322 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
7323 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
7326 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
7327 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
7328 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
7329 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
7330 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
7331 which should be matched against this regular expression.
7333 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
7336 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
7337 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
7338 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
7339 written out to PORT.
7341 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
7342 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
7343 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
7344 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
7345 will return after processing a single match.
7347 *** Match Structures
7349 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
7350 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
7351 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
7352 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
7353 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
7354 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
7357 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
7358 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
7359 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
7360 information about the original target string that was matched against a
7361 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
7363 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
7364 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
7365 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
7367 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
7368 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
7369 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
7370 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
7371 number N did not match, return `#f'.
7373 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
7374 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
7376 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
7377 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
7379 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
7380 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
7382 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
7383 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
7385 **** Function: match:count MATCH
7386 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
7387 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
7388 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
7390 **** Function: match:string MATCH
7391 Return the original TARGET string.
7393 *** Backslash Escapes
7395 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
7396 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
7397 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
7398 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
7399 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
7400 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
7402 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
7403 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
7404 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
7405 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
7406 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
7407 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
7408 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
7409 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
7411 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
7412 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
7413 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
7414 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
7415 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
7416 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
7417 each match a single backslash in the target string.
7419 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
7420 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
7421 return the resulting string.
7423 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
7424 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
7425 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
7426 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
7427 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
7428 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
7429 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
7430 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
7431 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
7432 translated to the single character `*'.
7434 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
7435 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
7436 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
7437 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
7438 consecutive backslashes:
7440 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
7442 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
7443 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
7444 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
7446 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
7447 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
7448 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
7449 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
7450 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
7451 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
7453 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
7455 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
7456 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
7457 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
7458 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
7459 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
7460 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
7461 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
7462 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
7463 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
7464 cumbersome escape syntax.
7466 * Changes to the gh_ interface
7468 * Changes to the scm_ interface
7470 * Changes to system call interfaces:
7472 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
7475 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
7477 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
7479 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
7482 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
7483 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
7484 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
7485 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
7486 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
7488 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
7489 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
7490 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
7491 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
7492 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
7493 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
7494 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
7497 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
7498 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
7499 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
7502 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
7503 `force-output' on every port open for output.
7505 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
7506 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
7507 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
7508 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
7509 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
7510 installed, you can say:
7512 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
7515 * Changes to the scm_ interface
7517 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
7518 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
7519 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
7520 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
7521 new dynamic roots and threads.
7524 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
7526 * Changes to the distribution.
7528 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
7530 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
7531 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
7532 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
7533 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
7534 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
7535 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
7536 programming language. These are packaged together because the
7537 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
7539 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
7542 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
7543 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
7548 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
7550 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
7551 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
7553 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
7554 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
7555 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
7556 the (command-line) function.
7557 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
7558 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
7559 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
7561 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
7562 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
7563 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
7564 command line arguments
7565 -ds do -s script at this point
7566 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
7567 -h, --help display this help and exit
7568 -v, --version display version information and exit
7569 \ read arguments from following script lines
7571 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
7572 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
7574 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
7577 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
7581 (main (command-line))
7583 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
7585 ekko a speckled gecko
7587 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
7588 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
7589 following list of command-line arguments:
7591 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
7593 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
7594 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
7595 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
7596 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
7597 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
7599 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
7601 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
7603 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
7604 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
7607 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
7608 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
7609 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
7610 SCSH) for circumventing them.
7612 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
7613 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
7614 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
7615 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
7617 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
7621 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
7625 If the user invokes this script as follows:
7627 ekko a speckled gecko
7629 Unix expands this into
7631 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
7633 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
7634 read from the second line of the script, producing:
7636 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
7638 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
7639 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
7641 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
7642 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
7643 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
7644 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
7645 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
7646 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
7647 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
7648 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
7649 it only terminates the argument list.)
7650 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
7651 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
7652 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
7653 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
7654 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
7655 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
7656 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
7657 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
7659 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
7661 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
7662 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
7663 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
7664 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
7665 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
7667 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
7668 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
7669 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
7671 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
7673 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
7674 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
7675 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
7676 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
7679 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
7680 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
7681 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
7683 * Changes to Scheme functions
7685 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
7686 and disabled by default.
7688 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
7689 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
7690 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
7691 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
7693 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
7695 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
7697 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
7698 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
7700 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
7701 (read-set! keywords #f)
7703 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
7704 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
7705 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
7708 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
7709 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
7710 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
7713 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
7714 support for Scheme functions.
7716 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
7717 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
7718 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
7719 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
7722 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
7723 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
7724 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
7727 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
7728 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
7729 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
7732 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
7733 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
7734 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
7735 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
7736 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
7737 display the result as a prompt.
7738 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
7740 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
7741 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
7742 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
7745 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
7746 procedure of zero arguments.
7748 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
7749 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
7750 argument is bound in the current module.
7752 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
7753 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
7754 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
7755 public bindings into the current module.
7757 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
7758 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
7760 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
7761 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
7763 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
7764 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
7766 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
7767 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
7769 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
7770 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
7772 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
7773 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
7774 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
7775 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
7776 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
7778 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
7779 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
7780 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
7781 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
7783 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
7786 ** Changes to I/O functions
7788 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
7789 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
7790 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
7792 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
7793 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
7794 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
7796 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
7797 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
7799 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
7800 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
7801 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
7802 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
7804 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
7806 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
7807 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
7809 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
7810 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
7811 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
7812 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
7813 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
7816 'trim omit delimiter from result
7817 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
7818 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
7819 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
7821 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
7823 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
7824 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
7826 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
7827 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
7828 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
7829 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
7830 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
7832 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
7833 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
7834 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
7836 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
7837 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
7838 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
7839 above, and defaults to 'peek.
7841 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
7842 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
7844 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
7845 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
7847 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
7849 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
7850 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
7851 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
7852 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
7853 a delimiting character.
7854 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
7856 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
7857 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
7858 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
7859 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
7860 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
7861 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
7863 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
7864 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
7866 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
7867 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
7868 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
7870 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
7871 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
7872 the array to read and write.
7874 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
7875 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
7878 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
7880 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
7883 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
7884 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
7885 Values for COMMAND are:
7887 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
7888 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
7889 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
7890 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
7891 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
7892 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
7893 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
7894 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
7896 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
7898 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
7899 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
7900 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
7901 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
7902 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
7903 corresponding return set will be the same.
7905 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
7908 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
7909 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
7910 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
7911 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
7912 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
7913 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
7914 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
7915 special file being created.
7917 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
7918 clashing with various SCSH forks.
7920 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
7921 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
7922 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
7923 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
7924 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
7925 and originating address.
7927 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
7928 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
7929 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
7931 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
7934 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
7935 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
7938 (status:exit-val STATUS)
7939 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
7940 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
7941 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
7942 this function returns #f.
7944 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
7945 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
7946 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
7949 (status:term-sig STATUS)
7950 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
7951 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
7954 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
7955 a valid STATUS value.
7957 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
7959 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
7960 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
7962 Component Accessor Setter
7963 ========================= ============ ============
7964 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
7965 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
7966 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
7967 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
7968 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
7969 year tm:year set-tm:year
7970 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
7971 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
7972 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
7973 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
7974 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
7976 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
7977 describing the host system:
7980 ============================================== ================
7981 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
7982 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
7983 release level of the operating system utsname:release
7984 version level of the operating system utsname:version
7985 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
7987 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
7988 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
7989 system's user database:
7992 ====================== =================
7993 user name passwd:name
7994 user password passwd:passwd
7997 real name passwd:gecos
7998 home directory passwd:dir
7999 shell program passwd:shell
8001 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
8002 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
8003 system's group database:
8006 ======================= ============
8007 group name group:name
8008 group password group:passwd
8010 group members group:mem
8012 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
8013 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
8017 ========================= ===============
8018 official name of host hostent:name
8019 alias list hostent:aliases
8020 host address type hostent:addrtype
8021 length of address hostent:length
8022 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
8024 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
8025 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
8029 ========================= ===============
8030 official name of net netent:name
8031 alias list netent:aliases
8032 net number type netent:addrtype
8033 net number netent:net
8035 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
8036 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
8040 ========================= ===============
8041 official protocol name protoent:name
8042 alias list protoent:aliases
8043 protocol number protoent:proto
8045 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
8046 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
8050 ========================= ===============
8051 official service name servent:name
8052 alias list servent:aliases
8053 port number servent:port
8054 protocol to use servent:proto
8056 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
8057 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
8060 ======================================== ===============
8061 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
8062 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
8063 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
8064 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
8066 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
8067 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
8068 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
8070 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
8071 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
8073 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
8074 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
8076 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
8077 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
8079 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
8081 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
8083 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
8084 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
8085 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
8087 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
8088 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
8089 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
8090 return the remaining characters as a string.
8092 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
8093 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
8094 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
8096 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
8098 * Changes to the gh_ interface
8100 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
8103 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
8106 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
8107 and returns the array
8109 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
8110 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
8111 the user to interpret the data both ways.
8113 * Changes to the scm_ interface
8115 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
8116 symbol's value from C code:
8118 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
8119 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
8120 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
8121 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
8123 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
8124 without assigning them a value.
8126 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
8127 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
8128 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
8130 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
8131 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
8132 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
8134 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
8135 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
8137 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
8138 doesn't actually care about that.
8140 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
8141 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
8142 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
8144 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
8145 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
8146 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
8147 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
8148 which we have just created and initialized.
8150 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
8151 should one occur. We call it like this:
8152 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
8154 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
8155 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
8156 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
8157 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
8158 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
8159 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
8162 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
8163 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
8164 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
8165 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
8166 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
8167 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
8168 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
8171 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
8172 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
8173 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
8174 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
8175 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
8178 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
8179 scm_internal_catch, except:
8181 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
8182 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
8183 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
8184 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
8187 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
8188 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
8189 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
8191 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
8192 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
8193 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
8194 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
8197 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
8198 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
8199 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
8201 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
8202 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
8203 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
8204 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
8205 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
8207 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
8208 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
8209 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
8211 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
8212 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
8213 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
8215 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
8216 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
8218 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
8219 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
8220 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
8223 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
8224 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
8225 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
8226 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
8227 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
8228 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
8229 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
8232 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
8233 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
8235 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
8236 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
8237 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
8238 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
8239 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
8242 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
8243 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
8245 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
8246 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
8249 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
8250 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
8252 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
8255 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
8256 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
8257 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
8258 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
8259 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
8260 given the following arguments:
8262 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
8264 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
8266 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
8268 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
8271 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
8272 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
8273 command-line arguments.
8275 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
8276 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
8277 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
8278 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
8279 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
8280 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
8283 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
8286 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
8287 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
8289 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
8290 rearranged slightly. They are now:
8292 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
8293 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
8294 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
8295 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
8297 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
8298 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
8300 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
8301 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
8302 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
8303 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
8305 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
8306 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
8308 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
8309 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
8311 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
8313 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
8314 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
8315 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
8318 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
8319 returns a port instead of an FD object.
8321 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
8322 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
8327 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
8330 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
8332 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
8333 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
8334 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
8335 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
8337 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
8339 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
8341 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
8342 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
8343 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
8344 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
8345 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
8346 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
8347 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
8348 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
8349 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
8350 for more information.
8352 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
8353 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
8355 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
8356 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
8357 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
8358 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
8359 following two lines at the top of the file:
8361 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
8364 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
8365 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
8366 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
8368 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
8370 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
8372 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
8375 (display (car args))
8376 (if (pair? (cdr args))
8378 (loop (cdr args)))))
8381 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
8382 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
8383 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
8384 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
8385 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
8386 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
8390 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
8393 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
8396 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
8398 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
8399 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
8400 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
8401 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
8402 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
8405 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
8406 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
8407 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
8408 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
8409 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
8412 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
8415 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
8416 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
8417 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
8420 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
8421 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
8422 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
8424 to see a backtrace, and
8425 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
8426 to see them by default.
8430 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
8432 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
8434 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
8435 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
8438 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
8439 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
8440 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
8441 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
8444 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
8445 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
8446 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
8447 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
8448 functions which inspired them.
8450 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
8451 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
8455 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
8457 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
8459 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
8460 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
8463 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
8464 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
8465 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
8467 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
8468 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
8469 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
8470 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
8471 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
8473 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
8475 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
8476 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
8477 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
8480 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
8483 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
8485 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
8486 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
8487 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
8488 above should serve their purposes.
8490 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
8491 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
8492 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
8493 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
8495 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
8498 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
8499 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
8500 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
8501 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
8503 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
8504 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
8505 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
8506 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
8508 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
8509 for the `read' function.
8512 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
8513 to that of `integer?'.
8515 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
8516 use the R4RS names for these functions.
8518 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
8519 it simply returns the object's property list.
8521 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
8522 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
8523 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
8524 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
8526 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
8528 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
8531 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
8533 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
8534 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
8536 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
8538 void (*main_func) (),
8541 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
8542 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
8543 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
8544 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
8545 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
8547 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
8548 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
8549 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
8550 know which arguments have been processed.
8552 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
8553 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
8554 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
8555 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
8556 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
8558 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
8559 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
8560 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
8561 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
8562 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
8563 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
8564 people from making that mistake.
8566 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
8567 convenient ways to override these when desired.
8569 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
8571 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
8575 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
8578 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
8579 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
8580 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
8581 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
8584 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
8585 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
8586 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
8587 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
8590 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
8591 have been added to the Guile library.
8593 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
8594 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
8595 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
8598 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
8599 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
8600 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
8602 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
8603 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
8604 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
8605 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
8606 argument from the list.
8609 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
8612 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
8613 null-terminated string, and returns it.
8615 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
8616 to a Scheme port object.
8618 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
8619 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
8624 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
8626 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
8627 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
8628 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
8629 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
8630 code as a special datatype.
8632 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
8633 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
8634 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
8635 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
8636 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
8639 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
8640 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
8641 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
8642 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
8643 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
8645 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
8648 Copyright information:
8650 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
8652 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
8653 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
8654 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
8655 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
8657 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
8658 of this document, or of portions of it,
8659 under the above conditions, provided also that they
8660 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
8665 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"