1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
7 Each release reports the NEWS in the following sections:
9 * Changes to the distribution
10 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
11 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
12 * Changes to the C interface
15 Changes since the stable branch:
17 * Changes to the distribution
19 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
21 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
22 At the moment it is being used to handle Guile's bignums.
24 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
26 Guile now has config.h and libguile/scmconfig.h. The former is not
27 installed and is private. The latter is installed and used by Guile's
28 public headers. config.h is generated by configure and autoheader,
29 and scmconfig.h is generated by a small C program, gen-scmconfig at
30 build time based in part on the contents of config.h.
32 Seen libguile/__scm.h and gen-scmconfig.c for more information.
34 ** The INSTALL file is now the generic automake installed one.
36 Guile specific instructions can be found in the README.
38 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
40 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
41 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
42 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
43 so the current effective-version is "1.6". The effective version
44 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
45 items like the versioned share directory name
46 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.6.
48 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
49 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
50 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
51 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
52 with each micro release during a stable series.
54 ** There are two new thread implementation options: "null" and "coop-pthreads".
56 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
57 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
58 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
59 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
60 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
63 The "coop-pthread" (or shorter: "copt") thread implementation will use
64 portable POSIX threads but will restrict them so that only one thread
65 can execute 'in Guile' at any one time. This option will give you the
66 same basic behavior as the old "coop" option, but hopefully in a more
69 The default is now "coop-pthread", unless your platform doesn't have
70 pthreads, in which case "null" threads are used.
72 ** Guile now includes its own version of libltdl.
74 We now use a modified version of libltdl that allows us to make
75 improvements to it without having to rely on libtool releases.
77 * Changes to the standalone interpreter
79 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
81 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
82 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
84 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
86 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
87 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
89 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
91 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
94 ** Checking for duplicate bindings in module system
96 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
99 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more duplicates
100 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
108 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
109 has been detected is to
111 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
112 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
113 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
116 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
119 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
121 to your .guile init file.
123 The syntax for the :duplicates option is:
125 :duplicates HANDLER-NAME | (HANDLER1-NAME HANDLER2-NAME ...)
127 Specifying multiple handlers is useful since some handlers (such as
128 replace) can defer conflict resolution to others. Each handler is
129 tried until a binding is selected.
131 Currently available duplicates handlers are:
133 check report an error for bindings with a common name
134 warn issue a warning for bindings with a common name
135 replace replace bindings which have an imported replacement
136 warn-override-core issue a warning for imports which override core bindings
137 and accept the override
138 first select the first encountered binding (override)
139 last select the last encountered binding (override)
141 These two are provided by the (oop goops) module:
143 merge-generics merge generic functions with a common name
144 into an <extended-generic>
145 merge-accessors merge accessors with a common name
147 The default duplicates handler is:
149 (replace warn-override-core warn last)
151 A recommended handler (which is likely to correspond to future Guile
152 behavior) can be installed with:
154 (default-duplicate-binding-handler '(replace warn-override-core check))
156 ** New define-module option: :replace
158 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
161 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
162 for the core binding `format'.
164 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
166 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
167 a prefix to all imported bindings.
170 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
172 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
175 ** Merging generic functions
177 It is sometimes tempting to use GOOPS accessors with short names.
178 For example, it is tempting to use the name `x' for the x-coordinate
181 Assume that we work with a graphical package which needs to use two
182 independent vector packages for 2D and 3D vectors respectively. If
183 both packages export `x' we will encounter a name collision.
185 This can now be resolved automagically with the duplicates handler
186 `merge-generics' which gives the module system license to merge all
187 generic functions sharing a common name:
189 (define-module (math 2D-vectors)
190 :use-module (oop goops)
193 (define-module (math 3D-vectors)
194 :use-module (oop goops)
197 (define-module (my-module)
198 :use-module (math 2D-vectors)
199 :use-module (math 3D-vectors)
200 :duplicates merge-generics)
202 x in (my-module) will now share methods with x in both imported
205 There will, in fact, now be three distinct generic functions named
206 `x': x in (2D-vectors), x in (3D-vectors), and x in (my-module). The
207 last function will be an <extended-generic>, extending the previous
210 Let's call the imported generic functions the "ancestor functions". x
211 in (my-module) is, in turn, a "descendant function" of the imported
212 functions, extending its ancestors.
214 For any generic function G, the applicable methods are selected from
215 the union of the methods of the descendant functions, the methods of G
216 itself and the methods of the ancestor functions.
218 This, ancestor functions share methods with their descendants and vice
219 versa. This implies that x in (math 2D-vectors) can will share the
220 methods of x in (my-module) and vice versa, while x in (math 2D-vectors)
221 doesn't share the methods of x in (math 3D-vectors), thus preserving
224 Sharing is dynamic, so that adding new methods to a descendant implies
225 adding it to the ancestor.
227 If duplicates checking is desired in the above example, the following
228 form of the :duplicates option can be used instead:
230 :duplicates (merge-generics check)
232 ** New function: effective-version
234 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
235 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
236 to the distribution" above.
240 Futures is a way of providing an alternative evaluation policy, very
241 similar in principle to "promises". Like promises, futures allow the
242 main process to continue instantly, but while promises postpone
243 evaluation ("lazy" evaluation) until the value is requested, futures
244 immediately starts evaluation in a parallel thread.
246 Futures are good when you want to express that "I'll need the value of
247 this computation sometime soon" and want to allow processing to go on
248 in the background until that time arrives.
250 ** New syntax: future FORM
252 Begin evaluation of FORM in a parallel thread and return the future
253 immediately. (Akin to 'delay'.)
255 ** New procedure: future-ref FUTURE
257 Return the computed value of the future. Wait if the computation is
258 not finished. (Akin to 'force'.)
260 ** New syntax: parallel FORM ...
262 Compute the results of FORM ... in parallel (in a separate thread for
263 each form) and return them as multiple values.
265 ** New syntax: letpar ((VAR EXP) ...) BODYFORM ...
267 Like 'let' but evaluates the binding expressions EXP ... in parallel.
269 ** New functions: par-map, par-for-each PROC ARGLIST ...
271 Like 'map' and 'for-each' but evaluate the procedure PROC in a
272 separate thread for each (set of) argument(s). All applications are
273 guaranteed to be completed before the procedure returns.
275 ** New functions: n-par-map, n-par-for-each N PROC ARGLIST ...
277 Like 'par-map' and 'par-for-each' but evaluate the procedure PROC in N
278 threads. This is useful when PROC uses large amounts of resources
279 and/or the argument list(s) is/are long so that one thread per (set
280 of) argument(s) would consume too much system resources. On a
281 dual-CPU system, N = 4 would often be a good choice.
283 ** Fair mutexes and condition variables
285 Fair mutexes and condition variables have been added. The fairness
286 means that scheduling is arranged to give as equal time shares as
287 possible and that threads are awakened in a first-in-first-out
288 manner. This is not guaranteed with standard mutexes and condition
291 In addition, fair mutexes are recursive. Locking a fair mutex that
292 you have already locked will succeed. Every call to lock-mutex must
293 be matched with a call to unlock-mutex. Only the last call to
294 unlock-mutex will actually unlock the mutex.
296 A fair condition variable must be used together with a fair mutex,
297 just as a standard condition variable must be used together with a
300 ** New functions: make-fair-mutex, make-fair-condition-variable'
302 Make a new fair mutex and a new fair condition variable respectively.
304 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
306 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
307 instead if blocking and indicate failure.
309 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
311 The funtion 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
312 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
315 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
317 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
319 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
321 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
322 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
323 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
326 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
327 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
328 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
331 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
332 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
334 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
336 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
337 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
340 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
341 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
343 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
344 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
345 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
346 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
347 level for the current thread.
349 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
351 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
353 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
354 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
357 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
359 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
361 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
364 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
366 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
369 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
370 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
371 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
373 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
374 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
375 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
376 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
387 ERROR: Numerical overflow
389 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
392 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
394 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
395 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
396 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
407 ** We now have uninterned symbols.
409 The new function 'make-symbol' will return a uninterned symbol. This
410 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
411 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
413 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
416 ** pretty-print has more options.
418 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
419 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
420 maximum output width. See its online documentation.
422 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
424 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
425 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
426 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
428 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
430 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
431 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
433 ** Removed: substring-move-left!, substring-move-right!
435 Use `substring-move!' instead.
437 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
439 Change your code to use either procedure->memoizing-macro or, probably better,
440 to use r5rs macros. Also, be aware that macro expansion will not be done
441 during evaluation, but prior to evaluation.
443 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
445 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
446 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
447 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
448 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
449 without the soft port blocking.
451 ** New debugging feature: breakpoints.
453 Guile now has breakpoints. For details see the `Debugging Features'
454 chapter in the reference manual.
456 ** Deprecated: undefine
458 There is no replacement for undefine.
460 * Changes to the C interface
462 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
464 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
465 private or renamed with a more suitable public name. See below for
466 the ones which have been renamed.
468 ** HAVE_STDINT_H and HAVE_INTTYPES_H have been removed from public use.
470 HAVE_STDINT_H and HAVE_INTTYPES_H removed from public use. These are
471 no longer needed since the older uses of stdint.h and inttypes.h are
472 now handled by configure.in and gen-scmconfig.c.
474 ** USE_DLL_IMPORT is no longer defined publically.
476 gen-scmconfig now uses it to decide what contents to place in the
477 public scmconfig.h header without adding the USE_DLL_IMPORT itself.
479 ** HAVE_LIMITS_H has been removed from public use.
481 gen-scmconfig now just uses HAVE_LIMITS_H to decide whether or not to
482 add a limits.h include in scmconfig.h.
484 ** time.h, sys/time.h, etc. #ifdefery has been removed from public headers.
486 gen-scmconfig now just uses the same logic to decide what time related
487 #includes to add to scmconfig.h.
489 ** HAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC has been removed from public use.
491 scmconfig.h now just defines scm_t_timespec.
493 ** HAVE_PTRDIFF has been removed from public use and Guile doesn't
496 Guile now publically defines scm_t_ptrdiff and
497 SCM_SIZEOF_SCM_T_PTRDIFF in scmconfig.h, and all occurrences of
498 ptrdiff_t have been replaced with scm_t_ptrdiff.
500 Guile defines its own type this rather than just relying on ptrdiff_t
501 and SCM_SIZEOF_PTRDIFF_T because Guile actually typedefs long to
502 scm_t_ptrdiff when ptrdiff_t isn't available. A public "typedef long
503 ptrdiff_t" could conflict with other headers.
505 ** HAVE_UINTPTR_T and HAVE_UINTPTR_T have been removed from public use.
507 They are replaced by public definitions of SCM_SIZEOF_UINTPTR_T and
508 SCM_SIZEOF_INTPTR_T. These are defined to 0 if the corresponding type
511 ** The public #define STDC_HEADERS has been renamed to SCM_HAVE_STDC_HEADERS.
513 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
515 ** The public #define HAVE_SYS_SELECT has been renamed to
516 SCM_HAVE_SYS_SELECT_H.
518 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
520 ** The public #define HAVE_FLOATINGPOINT_H has been renamed to
521 SCM_HAVE_FLOATINGPOINT_H.
523 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
525 ** The public #define HAVE_IEEEFP_H has been renamed to SCM_HAVE_IEEEFP_H.
527 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
529 ** The public #define HAVE_NAN_H has been renamed to SCM_HAVE_NAN_H.
531 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
533 ** The public #define HAVE_WINSOCK2_H has been renamed to SCM_HAVE_WINSOCK2_H.
535 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
537 ** The public #define HAVE_ARRAYS has been renamed to SCM_HAVE_ARRAYS.
539 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
541 ** The public #define STACK_GROWS_UP has been renamed to SCM_STACK_GROWS_UP.
543 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
545 ** The public #define USE_PTHREAD_THREADS has been renamed to
546 SCM_USE_PTHREAD_THREADS.
548 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
550 ** The public #define USE_NULL_THREADS has been renamed to
551 SCM_USE_NULL_THREADS.
553 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
555 ** The public #define USE_COOP_THREADS has been renamed to
556 SCM_USE_COOP_THREADS.
558 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
560 ** SCM_C_INLINE is publically defined if possible.
562 If the platform has a way to define inline functions, SCM_C_INLINE
563 will be defined to that text. Otherwise it will be undefined. This
564 is a little bit different than autoconf's normal handling of the
565 inline define via AC_C_INLINE.
567 ** Guile now publically defines some basic type infrastructure.
572 SCM_SIZEOF_UNSIGNED_CHAR
574 SCM_SIZEOF_UNSIGNED_SHORT
576 SCM_SIZEOF_UNSIGNED_LONG
578 SCM_SIZEOF_UNSIGNED_INT
579 SCM_SIZEOF_LONG_LONG /* defined to 0 if type not available */
580 SCM_SIZEOF_UNSIGNED_LONG_LONG /* defined to 0 if type not available */
594 and when either of these are defined to 1, optionally defines
605 ** The preprocessor define USE_THREADS has been deprecated.
607 Going forward, assume that the thread API is always present.
609 ** The preprocessor define GUILE_ISELECT has been deprecated.
611 Going forward, assume that scm_internal_select is always present.
613 ** The preprocessor define READER_EXTENSIONS has been deprecated.
615 Going forward, assume that the features represented by
616 READER_EXTENSIONS are always present.
618 ** The preprocessor define DEBUG_EXTENSIONS has been deprecated.
620 Going forward, assume that the features represented by
621 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS are always present.
623 ** The preprocessor define DYNAMIC_LINKING has been deprecated.
625 Going forward, assume that the features represented by
626 DYNAMIC_LINKING are always present.
628 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
630 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
631 programs. (Do not use.)
633 ** New function: scm_effective_version
635 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
636 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
637 to the distribution" above.
639 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
641 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
642 arguments are now passed directly:
644 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
646 This is an incompatible change.
648 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
650 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
651 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
652 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
654 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
655 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
657 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
659 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
661 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
662 function in the init section.
664 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
666 ** New macros SCM_VECTOR_REF and SCM_VECTOR_SET.
668 Use these in preference to SCM_VELTS.
670 ** The SCM_VELTS macros now returns a read-only vector. For writing,
671 use the new macros SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS or SCM_VECTOR_SET. The use of
672 SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS is discouraged, though.
674 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
676 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
677 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
678 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
679 stays roughly constant.
681 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
682 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
683 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
684 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
685 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
688 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
689 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
690 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
691 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
693 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
695 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
697 ** The struct scm_cell has been renamed to scm_t_cell
699 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
700 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
701 initializes a new cell (see below).
703 ** New functions for memory management
705 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
706 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
707 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
708 cause aborts in long running programs.
710 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
711 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
713 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
714 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
715 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
716 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
717 details and for upgrading instructions.
719 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
720 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
721 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
723 ** New function: scm_str2string
725 This function creates a scheme string from a 0-terminated C string. The input
728 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
730 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
731 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
732 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
733 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
734 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
736 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
737 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
738 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
740 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, QT_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
741 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
743 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
745 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old macros
746 had problems because with them allocation and initialization was separated and
747 the GC could sometimes observe half initialized cells. Only careful coding by
748 the user of SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
750 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
752 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
755 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
757 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
759 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
761 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or, probably better, to use r5rs
762 macros. Also, be aware that macro expansion will not be done during
763 evaluation, but prior to evaluation.
765 ** Removed from scm_root_state: def_inp, def_outp, def_errp, together
766 with corresponding macros scm_def_inp, scm_def_outp and scm_def_errp.
767 These were undocumented and unused copies of the standard ports at the
768 time that Guile was initialised. Normally the current ports should be
769 used instead, obtained from scm_current_input_port () etc. If an
770 application needs to retain earlier ports, it should save them in a
771 gc-protected location.
773 ** Removed compile time option MEMOIZE_LOCALS
775 Now, caching of local variable positions during memoization is mandatory.
776 However, the option to disable the caching has most probably not been used
779 ** Removed compile time option SCM_RECKLESS
781 Full number of arguments checking of closures is mandatory now. However, the
782 option to disable the checking has most probably not been used anyway.
784 ** Removed compile time option SCM_CAUTIOUS
786 Full number of arguments checking of closures is mandatory now. However, the
787 option to disable the checking has most probably not been used anyway.
789 ** Deprecated configure flags USE_THREADS and GUILE_ISELECT
791 Previously, when the C preprocessor macro USE_THREADS was defined,
792 libguile included a thread API. This API is now always included, even
793 when threads are not really supported. Thus, you don't need to test
796 Analogously, GUILE_ISELECT was defined when the function
797 scm_internal_select was provided by Guile. This function is now
798 always defined, and GUILE_ISELECT with it.
800 ** Removed definitions: scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify,
801 scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify, scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify,
802 scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify, scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell,
803 scm_debug_newcell2, scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH,
804 SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY, SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY,
805 SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED, scm_debug_newcell,
806 scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL,
807 SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL,
808 SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS,
809 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
810 scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3, scm_eval2, SCM_SETAND_CAR,
811 SCM_SETOR_CAR, SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP,
812 SCM_GC8MARKP, SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR,
813 scm_remember, scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object,
814 root_module_lookup_closure, scm_sym_app, scm_sym_modules,
815 module_prefix, make_modules_in_var, beautify_user_module_x_var,
816 try_module_autoload_var, scm_module_full_name, scm_the_root_module,
817 scm_make_module, scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module,
818 scm_port, scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_port_rw_active,
819 scm_close_all_ports_except, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_i_rstate,
820 SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_STRING_UCHARS,
821 SCM_STRING_CHARS, scm_read_only_string_p, scm_makstr, scm_makfromstr,
822 scm_make_shared_substring, scm_tc7_substring, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP,
823 SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP, scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
824 sym_huh, scm_variable_set_name_hint, scm_builtin_variable,
825 SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP, SCM_DEFVARIABLEP,
826 scm_internal_with_fluids, scm_make_gsubr, scm_make_gsubr_with_generic,
827 scm_create_hook, list*, SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3,
828 SCM_LIST4, SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9,
829 scm_listify, scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member,
830 scm_end_of_file_key, scm_read_and_eval_x, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum,
831 scm_adjbig, scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big,
832 scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT, scm_subr_entry, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
833 scm_make_subr_opt, scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_with_generic,
834 setjmp_type, setjmp_type, scm_call_catching_errors,
835 scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe, scm_strprint_obj,
836 scm_read_0str, scm_eval_0str, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_SETCHARS,
837 SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_LENGTH_MAX,
838 SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_ROCHARS,
839 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR, scm_strhash,
840 scm_sym2vcell, scm_sym2ovcell_soft, scm_sym2ovcell,
841 scm_intern_obarray_soft, scm_intern_obarray, scm_intern, scm_intern0,
842 scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0, scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup,
843 scm_symbol_value0, scm_string_to_obarray_symbol, scm_intern_symbol,
844 scm_unintern_symbol, scm_symbol_binding, scm_symbol_interned_p,
845 scm_symbol_bound_p, scm_symbol_set_x, scm_gentemp,
846 scm_init_symbols_deprecated, s_vector_set_length_x,
847 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
848 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_OPDIRP, scm_fport, scm_option,
849 SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT,
850 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT, scm_srcprops, scm_srcprops_chunk,
851 scm_info_frame, scm_stack, scm_array, scm_array_dim,
852 SCM_ARRAY_CONTIGUOUS, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_WTA,
853 RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
854 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR,
855 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
856 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING,
857 SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
858 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
859 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
860 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
861 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable
863 Changes since Guile 1.4:
865 * Changes to the distribution
867 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
869 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
871 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
872 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
873 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
874 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
875 indicate major changes in Guile.
877 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
878 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
879 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
880 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
882 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
883 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
884 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
885 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
886 micro version number.
888 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
890 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
892 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
893 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
895 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
897 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
898 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
899 See INSTALL and README for more information.
901 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
903 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
904 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
905 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
908 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
910 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
913 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
915 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
916 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
918 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
920 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
921 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
924 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
926 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
929 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
932 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
934 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
936 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
937 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
938 open-output-string, get-output-string.
940 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
942 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
944 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
947 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
949 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
951 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
953 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
954 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
955 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
957 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
959 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
961 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
962 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
971 See README there for more info.
973 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
974 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
977 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
979 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
981 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
983 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
984 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
985 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
987 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
989 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
990 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
991 to be named `and-let*', of course.
993 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
994 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
996 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
1001 (oop goops active-slot)
1002 (oop goops composite-slot)
1004 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
1005 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
1006 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
1008 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
1010 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
1011 in the default environment:
1013 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
1014 %read-line write-line
1016 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
1017 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
1019 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
1021 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
1024 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
1025 can be used for similar functionality.
1027 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
1029 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
1030 it defines two procedures:
1032 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1034 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
1035 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1036 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
1039 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1041 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
1042 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1043 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
1044 write large strings.
1046 ** New module (ice-9 match)
1048 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
1049 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
1051 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
1053 for complete documentation.
1055 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
1057 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
1058 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
1059 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
1060 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
1062 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
1063 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
1067 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
1068 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
1069 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
1072 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
1075 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
1076 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
1078 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
1079 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
1082 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
1085 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
1087 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
1089 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1091 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
1093 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
1094 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
1095 Scheme programs easier.
1097 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
1098 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
1099 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
1100 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
1101 `cond-expand' when using this option.
1104 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
1105 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
1107 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
1110 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
1112 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
1113 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
1114 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
1117 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1119 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
1121 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
1122 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
1123 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
1124 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
1125 was also ASCII, for example.
1127 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
1129 tag - no replacement.
1130 fseek - replaced by seek.
1131 list* - replaced by cons*.
1133 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
1137 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
1138 (define m (make-safe-module))
1139 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
1140 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
1141 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
1143 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
1145 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
1146 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
1147 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
1149 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
1151 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
1152 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
1153 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
1154 from the issues related to the module system.
1156 *** New function: load-extension
1158 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
1160 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
1162 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
1163 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
1164 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
1166 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
1168 This function registers a initialization function for use by
1169 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
1170 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
1171 support dynamic linking).
1173 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
1175 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
1176 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
1177 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
1178 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
1181 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
1182 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
1183 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
1184 library and initialize it explicitely.
1186 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
1187 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
1189 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
1191 (define-module (foo bar))
1193 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
1195 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
1197 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
1198 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
1200 (scheme-report-environment 5)
1201 (null-environment 5)
1202 (interaction-environment)
1208 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
1210 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
1211 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
1212 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
1213 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
1215 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
1216 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
1217 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
1218 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
1219 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
1220 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
1221 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
1222 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
1223 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
1224 one eval to the next.
1226 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
1227 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
1228 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
1229 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
1230 subforms are at the top-level as well.
1232 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
1233 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
1234 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
1235 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
1236 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
1237 used in a lexical environment.
1239 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
1240 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
1241 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
1242 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
1243 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
1244 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
1246 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
1248 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
1249 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
1250 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
1251 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
1252 new facilities: selection and renaming.
1254 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
1255 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
1256 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
1258 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
1259 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
1261 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
1262 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
1263 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1265 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1266 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
1268 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
1269 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
1270 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
1271 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
1274 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1275 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
1276 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
1277 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1279 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1280 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1281 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
1283 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1284 ;; and all four by upcasing.
1285 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
1286 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
1287 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
1289 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1291 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1292 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1293 :renamer upcase-symbol))
1295 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
1296 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
1297 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
1299 See manual for more info.
1301 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
1303 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
1304 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
1305 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
1307 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
1309 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
1310 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
1311 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
1313 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
1314 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
1315 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
1316 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
1318 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
1320 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
1321 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
1323 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
1324 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
1325 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
1326 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
1327 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
1330 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
1331 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
1332 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
1333 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
1334 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
1335 successful and #f if it wasn't.
1337 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
1338 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
1339 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
1340 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
1341 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
1343 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
1344 objects are usually permanent.
1346 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
1347 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
1349 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
1351 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
1352 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
1355 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
1359 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
1364 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
1366 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
1367 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
1368 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
1369 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
1371 ** New function `make-object-property'
1373 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
1374 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
1378 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
1379 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
1383 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
1384 source properties eventually.
1386 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
1388 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
1389 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
1390 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
1392 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
1393 will be removed in the next release.
1395 ** New define-module option: pure
1397 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
1402 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
1405 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
1407 Export names NAME1 ...
1409 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
1410 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
1414 (define-module (foo)
1416 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
1419 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
1424 ** New function: object->string OBJ
1426 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
1428 ** New function: port? X
1430 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
1431 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
1433 ** New function: file-port?
1435 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
1437 ** New function: port-for-each proc
1439 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
1440 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
1441 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
1442 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
1443 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
1445 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
1447 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
1448 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
1449 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
1450 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
1451 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
1454 ** New function: close-fdes fd
1456 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
1457 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
1458 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
1459 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
1462 ** New function: crypt password salt
1464 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
1467 ** New function: chroot path
1469 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
1471 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
1473 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
1476 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
1478 Get or set the priority of the running process.
1480 ** New function: getpass prompt
1482 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
1485 ** New function: flock file operation
1487 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
1489 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
1491 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
1494 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
1496 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
1497 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
1498 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
1499 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
1500 of the temporary file.
1502 ** New function: open-input-string string
1504 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
1505 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
1506 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
1508 ** New function: open-output-string
1510 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
1511 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
1513 ** New function: get-output-string
1515 Return the contents of an output string port.
1517 ** New function: identity
1519 Return the argument.
1521 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
1522 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
1524 ** New function: inet-pton family address
1526 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
1527 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
1528 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1531 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
1532 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
1534 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
1536 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
1537 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
1538 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1541 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
1542 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
1543 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
1547 Use `identity' instead.
1553 ** Deprecated: return-it
1557 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
1559 Use `string-length' instead.
1561 ** Deprecated: flags
1563 Use `logior' instead.
1565 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
1567 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
1568 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
1569 port-for-each is more flexible.
1571 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
1572 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
1573 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
1575 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
1577 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
1579 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
1581 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
1583 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
1585 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
1586 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
1588 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
1589 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
1591 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
1592 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
1594 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
1596 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
1597 Removed function: builtin-bindings
1599 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
1600 Use module system operations for all variables.
1602 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
1604 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
1607 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
1609 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
1610 The following bugs have been fixed:
1612 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
1613 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
1616 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
1617 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
1618 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
1620 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
1621 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
1623 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
1624 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
1627 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
1628 The expansion used to be like so:
1630 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
1632 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
1634 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
1636 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
1637 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
1639 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
1641 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
1642 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
1643 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
1647 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
1648 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
1650 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
1655 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
1656 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
1658 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
1659 and `d', other keywords allowed.
1660 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
1662 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
1665 * Changes to the C interface
1667 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
1669 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
1670 with "_t". What a concept.
1672 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
1674 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
1676 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
1680 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
1681 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
1683 *** C Functions removed
1685 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
1686 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
1687 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
1688 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
1689 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
1690 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
1691 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
1693 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
1695 Use scm_mem2string instead.
1697 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
1699 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
1701 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
1702 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
1704 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
1706 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
1709 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
1711 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
1713 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
1715 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments.
1719 scm_call_1 (proc, arg1);
1721 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
1723 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list
1728 scm_apply_1 (proc, arg1, args);
1730 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
1732 Create a list of the given number of elements.
1734 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
1736 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
1737 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
1739 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
1741 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
1743 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
1744 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
1745 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
1747 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1749 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
1751 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
1752 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
1753 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
1756 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1758 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
1760 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
1761 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
1763 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
1765 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
1766 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
1767 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
1768 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
1770 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
1771 scm_primitive_property_ref
1772 scm_primitive_property_set_x
1773 scm_primitive_property_del_x
1775 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
1776 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
1778 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
1780 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
1781 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
1782 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
1783 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
1785 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
1787 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
1788 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
1789 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
1790 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
1791 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
1792 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
1793 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
1795 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
1796 scm_remember_upto_here
1798 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
1800 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
1802 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
1803 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
1805 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
1807 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
1809 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
1811 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
1813 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
1815 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
1816 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
1817 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
1818 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
1819 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
1820 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
1822 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
1824 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1826 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
1827 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1828 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
1830 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
1832 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
1833 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1834 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
1836 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
1838 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
1839 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
1842 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
1845 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
1846 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
1849 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1851 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
1853 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
1855 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1857 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
1859 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
1861 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
1862 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
1863 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
1864 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
1865 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
1866 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
1867 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
1868 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
1869 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
1870 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
1871 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
1872 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
1873 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
1874 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
1875 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
1877 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
1878 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
1879 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
1880 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
1881 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
1882 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
1883 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
1884 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
1885 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1886 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
1887 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
1888 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
1889 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
1890 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
1891 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
1892 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1893 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1894 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
1895 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
1896 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
1897 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
1898 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
1899 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
1900 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
1901 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
1902 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
1903 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
1904 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
1905 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
1907 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
1909 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
1911 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
1912 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
1914 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
1916 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
1918 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
1920 Use scm_string_hash instead.
1922 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
1924 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
1926 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
1928 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
1930 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
1933 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
1934 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
1936 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
1938 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
1940 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
1942 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
1944 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
1946 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
1948 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
1950 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
1953 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
1955 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
1957 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
1959 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
1960 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
1962 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
1963 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
1965 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
1967 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
1968 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
1969 scm_module_define, scm_define.
1971 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
1973 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
1975 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
1976 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
1978 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
1979 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
1980 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
1981 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
1983 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
1984 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
1985 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
1987 Use the new ones from above instead.
1989 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
1991 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
1992 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
1993 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
1995 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
1996 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
1998 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
1999 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
2002 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
2003 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
2005 Use the new functions instead.
2007 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
2010 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
2012 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
2014 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
2017 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
2019 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
2022 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
2024 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
2027 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
2028 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
2029 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
2031 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
2033 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
2034 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
2036 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
2037 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
2038 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
2039 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
2042 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
2044 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
2045 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
2046 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
2047 inexact for an exact.
2049 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
2050 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
2051 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
2054 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
2055 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
2056 accept an inexact argument.
2058 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
2059 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
2061 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
2064 ** New number validation macros:
2065 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
2069 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
2071 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
2072 scm_unprotect_object.
2074 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
2076 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
2078 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
2081 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
2083 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
2087 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
2089 * Changes to the distribution
2091 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
2093 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
2094 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
2095 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
2096 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
2097 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
2098 obtain these programs.
2099 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
2100 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
2102 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
2103 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
2104 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
2105 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
2106 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
2108 However, this approach means that minor differences between
2109 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
2110 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
2111 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
2115 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
2118 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
2119 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
2120 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
2121 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
2123 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
2125 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
2127 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
2128 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
2130 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
2131 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
2133 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
2134 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
2136 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
2137 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
2138 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
2139 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
2141 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
2143 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
2147 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
2148 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
2150 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
2152 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
2153 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
2155 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
2156 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
2157 number of objects of that kind.
2159 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
2161 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
2162 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
2163 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
2164 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
2165 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
2167 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
2169 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
2171 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
2173 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
2176 ** New module (ice-9 time)
2178 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
2180 ** New module (ice-9 history)
2182 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
2184 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2186 ** New command line option --debug
2188 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
2190 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
2192 ** New help facility
2194 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
2195 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
2196 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
2197 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
2198 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
2199 (help) gives this text
2201 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
2202 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
2204 Examples: (help help)
2206 (help "output-string")
2208 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
2210 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
2212 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
2213 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
2216 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
2217 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
2218 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
2221 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
2222 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
2223 use absolute filenames when possible.
2225 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
2226 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
2227 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
2230 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
2232 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
2233 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
2234 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
2235 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
2237 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
2239 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
2241 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
2242 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
2243 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
2245 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
2246 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
2247 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
2249 (read-enable 'positions)
2250 (debug-enable 'debug)
2252 ** Backtraces in scripts
2254 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
2258 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
2260 at the top of the script.
2262 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
2263 The second enables backtraces.)
2265 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
2267 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
2268 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
2269 substantially faster than before.
2271 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
2272 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
2274 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
2275 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
2277 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
2279 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
2280 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
2281 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
2283 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
2284 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
2285 when this hook is run in the future.
2287 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
2288 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
2290 ** Improvements to garbage collector
2292 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
2293 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
2296 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
2297 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
2298 more and more memory for certain programs.)
2300 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
2301 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
2303 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
2304 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
2306 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
2307 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
2308 in order not to need further allocation.)
2310 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
2313 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
2314 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
2315 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
2316 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
2318 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
2320 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
2323 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
2325 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
2328 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
2329 GC in percent of total heap size
2332 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
2333 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
2335 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
2337 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
2338 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
2340 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
2342 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
2343 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
2345 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
2347 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
2348 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
2352 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
2353 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
2355 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
2357 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2359 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
2361 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
2363 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
2365 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
2366 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
2368 (simple-format port message . args)
2369 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
2370 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
2371 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
2372 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
2373 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
2374 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
2375 Does not add a trailing newline."
2377 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
2379 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
2380 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
2382 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
2383 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
2385 ** Deprecated: list*
2387 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
2389 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
2391 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
2392 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
2394 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
2395 is returned as result.
2397 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
2399 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
2401 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
2403 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
2404 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
2407 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
2409 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
2411 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
2412 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
2414 * Changes to the gh_ interface
2416 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
2418 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
2420 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2422 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
2424 Thanks to Greg Badros!
2426 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2428 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2429 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
2430 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
2432 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
2435 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
2437 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
2438 the readability of argument checking.
2440 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
2442 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
2444 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
2446 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
2447 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
2448 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
2449 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
2450 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
2451 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
2452 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
2454 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
2456 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
2458 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
2459 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
2461 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
2463 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
2464 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
2467 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
2469 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
2470 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
2471 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
2473 Further, it is recommended not to rely on implementation details for guile's
2474 current implementation of bignums. It is planned to replace this
2475 implementation with gmp in the future.
2477 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
2478 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
2479 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
2481 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
2482 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
2483 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
2484 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
2485 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
2486 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
2487 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
2489 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
2490 scm_end_input (object);
2491 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
2492 ptob->flush (object);
2494 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
2495 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
2498 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
2500 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
2502 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
2503 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
2504 removed in a future version.
2506 ** The format of error message strings has changed
2508 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
2509 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
2510 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
2511 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
2513 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
2514 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
2516 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
2519 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
2521 in your configure.in.
2523 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
2528 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
2534 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
2536 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
2540 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
2541 (define make-message string-append)
2543 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
2545 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
2549 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
2554 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
2558 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
2560 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
2561 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
2563 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
2565 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
2566 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
2567 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
2568 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
2569 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
2570 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
2572 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
2573 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
2574 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
2576 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
2577 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
2578 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
2581 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
2582 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
2583 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
2584 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
2585 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
2587 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
2588 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
2589 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
2590 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
2591 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
2592 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
2593 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
2595 Destructors are not yet implemented.
2597 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
2598 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
2599 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
2601 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
2602 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
2603 KEY in the calling thread.
2605 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
2606 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
2607 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
2608 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
2609 associated with the key.
2611 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
2613 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
2614 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
2616 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
2618 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
2619 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
2620 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
2622 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
2624 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
2625 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
2627 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
2629 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
2631 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
2632 returned is undefined.
2634 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
2635 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
2636 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
2638 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
2639 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
2640 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
2642 ** New C level GC hooks
2644 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
2646 scm_before_gc_c_hook
2649 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
2650 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
2651 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
2653 scm_before_mark_c_hook
2654 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
2655 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
2657 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
2658 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
2661 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
2663 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
2664 allocation parameters
2666 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
2667 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
2668 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
2672 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
2673 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
2674 scm_default_max_segment_size
2676 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
2678 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
2679 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
2681 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
2683 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
2684 object and count on the object being protected until
2685 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
2687 The functions also have better time complexity.
2689 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
2690 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
2691 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
2692 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
2693 are no longer needed.
2695 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
2697 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
2698 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
2699 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
2700 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
2702 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
2704 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
2706 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
2708 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
2709 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
2710 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
2711 until this issue has been settled.
2713 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
2715 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
2717 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
2720 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
2722 * Changes to system call interfaces:
2724 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
2725 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
2726 descriptors were checked.
2728 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
2729 atomically written to a pipe.
2731 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
2732 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
2733 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
2734 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
2735 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
2736 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
2737 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
2740 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
2741 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
2742 is changed without calling tzset.
2744 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
2746 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
2747 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
2748 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
2750 (define write-network-long
2751 (lambda (value port)
2752 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2753 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
2754 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
2756 (define read-network-long
2758 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2759 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
2760 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
2762 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
2763 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
2765 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
2766 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
2767 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
2768 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
2770 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
2771 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
2772 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
2773 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
2777 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
2779 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2783 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
2784 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
2785 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
2791 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
2792 for a description of available commands.
2794 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
2795 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
2796 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
2798 (debug-enable 'backwards)
2800 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
2801 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
2803 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
2805 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
2807 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
2808 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
2809 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
2810 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
2811 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
2812 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
2815 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
2817 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
2818 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
2819 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
2820 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
2822 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
2823 the file and should not be affected by this change.
2825 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
2827 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2829 ** Readline support has changed again.
2831 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
2832 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
2833 to activate readline is now
2835 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
2838 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
2840 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
2841 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
2842 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
2845 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
2846 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
2847 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
2850 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
2851 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
2852 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
2853 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
2854 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
2855 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
2857 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
2858 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
2860 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
2862 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
2863 object it receives is the same string passed to
2864 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
2865 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
2866 string, not the suffix.
2868 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
2869 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
2870 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
2872 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
2874 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
2875 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
2876 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
2877 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
2880 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2882 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
2884 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
2885 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
2886 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
2887 appear from left to right.
2889 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
2892 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
2894 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
2895 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
2897 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2901 *** New function: hook? OBJ
2903 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
2905 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
2907 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
2908 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
2909 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
2911 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
2913 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
2915 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
2917 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
2920 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
2922 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
2923 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
2924 mentioning it here anyway.
2926 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
2928 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
2929 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
2930 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
2931 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
2934 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
2936 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
2938 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
2940 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
2941 otherwise return #f.
2943 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
2945 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
2946 returned by `opendir'.
2948 ** New function: using-readline?
2950 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
2952 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
2954 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
2955 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
2957 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2959 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
2961 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
2962 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
2963 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
2965 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
2967 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
2968 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
2970 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
2972 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
2973 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
2974 documentation slots are not yet used.
2976 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
2978 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
2979 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
2980 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
2985 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
2986 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
2987 (string-append x y))
2989 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
2990 can also be used for concatenating strings.
2992 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
2993 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
2994 be made in a clean way.]
2996 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
2998 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3000 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3002 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
3003 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
3005 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3007 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
3009 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3011 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3013 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
3014 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
3015 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
3016 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
3019 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3021 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
3023 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3025 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3027 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
3028 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
3030 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3032 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
3034 Evaluates the body of a special form.
3036 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
3038 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
3039 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
3040 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
3041 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
3042 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
3043 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
3045 This should not make any difference for most users.
3047 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
3049 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
3050 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
3052 *** New functions for applying generic functions
3054 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
3055 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
3056 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
3057 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
3058 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
3060 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
3062 It is now replaced by:
3064 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
3066 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3067 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3069 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3071 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
3072 This might change when we get the new module system.
3074 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
3078 Changes since Guile 1.3:
3080 * Changes to mailing lists
3082 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
3084 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
3087 * Changes to the distribution
3089 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
3091 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
3092 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
3093 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
3094 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
3095 you explicitly specify it.
3097 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
3098 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
3099 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
3100 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
3101 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
3104 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
3105 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
3106 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
3107 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
3109 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
3110 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
3111 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
3114 You can activate the readline support by issuing
3116 (use-modules (readline-activator))
3119 from your ".guile" file, for example.
3121 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3123 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
3124 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
3125 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
3126 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
3128 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
3129 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
3132 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3134 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
3135 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
3136 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
3137 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
3138 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
3139 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
3140 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
3141 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
3153 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
3154 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
3155 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
3156 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
3157 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
3162 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
3163 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
3171 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
3176 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
3177 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
3180 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
3181 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
3182 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
3183 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
3185 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
3187 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
3189 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
3190 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
3192 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
3194 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
3196 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
3197 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
3199 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
3202 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
3204 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
3206 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
3208 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
3210 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
3212 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
3214 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
3215 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
3216 when the hook was created.
3218 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
3219 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
3220 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
3221 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
3222 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
3223 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
3224 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
3225 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
3226 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
3228 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
3229 the dlopen family of functions.
3231 ** New function `provided?'
3233 - Function: provided? FEATURE
3234 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
3235 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
3236 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
3238 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
3240 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
3241 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
3242 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
3243 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3246 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3247 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
3248 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
3249 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
3251 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
3252 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
3253 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
3256 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
3257 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
3258 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
3259 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
3260 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
3261 but with the flag set.
3263 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
3265 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
3266 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
3268 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
3269 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
3270 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
3271 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
3272 available Scheme format implementations.
3274 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
3275 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
3276 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
3277 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
3278 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
3279 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
3280 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
3281 output is to the current error port if available by the
3282 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
3285 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
3286 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
3287 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
3288 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
3289 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
3290 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
3291 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
3292 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
3294 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
3295 be executed at a time.
3298 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
3300 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
3301 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
3302 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
3304 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
3305 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
3306 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
3307 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
3308 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
3309 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
3310 general form of a directive is:
3312 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
3314 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
3316 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3318 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
3319 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
3320 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
3323 Any (print as `display' does).
3327 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
3331 S-expression (print as `write' does).
3335 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
3341 print number sign always.
3344 print comma separated.
3346 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
3352 print number sign always.
3355 print comma separated.
3357 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
3363 print number sign always.
3366 print comma separated.
3368 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
3374 print number sign always.
3377 print comma separated.
3379 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
3384 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
3388 print a number as a Roman numeral.
3391 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
3394 print a number as an ordinal English number.
3397 print a number as a cardinal English number.
3402 prints `y' and `ies'.
3405 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3408 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3413 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
3417 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
3420 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
3421 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
3423 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3426 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
3427 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
3429 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3432 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
3434 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
3436 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3439 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
3441 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
3443 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3446 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
3449 The sign appears before the padding.
3457 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
3459 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
3464 print N page separators.
3474 newline is ignored, white space left.
3477 newline is left, white space ignored.
3482 relative tabulation.
3488 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
3490 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
3493 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
3495 converts by `string-capitalize'.
3498 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
3501 converts by `string-upcase'.
3504 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
3506 jumps N arguments forward.
3509 jumps 1 argument backward.
3512 jumps N arguments backward.
3515 jumps to the 0th argument.
3518 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
3520 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
3521 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
3523 take argument from N.
3526 true test conditional.
3529 if-else-then conditional.
3535 default clause follows.
3538 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
3540 at most N iterations.
3543 args from next arg (a list of lists).
3546 args from the rest of arguments.
3549 args from the rest args (lists).
3560 aborts if N <= M <= K
3562 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3565 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3568 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3574 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
3576 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
3578 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
3579 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
3580 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
3581 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
3582 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
3583 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
3587 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
3591 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
3597 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
3600 Print a `#\space' character
3602 print N `#\space' characters.
3605 Print a `#\tab' character
3607 print N `#\tab' characters.
3610 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
3611 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
3612 must be a positive decimal number.
3615 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3616 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3617 be processed by `read'.
3620 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3621 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3622 be processed by `read'.
3625 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
3628 prints format version.
3631 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
3632 and format it accordingly.
3634 *** Configuration Variables
3636 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
3637 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
3638 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
3639 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
3642 format:symbol-case-conv
3643 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
3644 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
3645 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
3646 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
3647 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
3649 format:iobj-case-conv
3650 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
3651 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
3654 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
3657 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
3663 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
3664 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
3665 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
3666 `format' padding style.
3669 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
3670 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
3671 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
3672 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
3676 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
3677 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
3678 directive parameters or modifiers)).
3681 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
3682 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
3683 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
3684 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
3685 parameters or modifiers)).
3688 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
3690 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
3692 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
3693 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
3695 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
3696 string-downcase! functions.
3698 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
3699 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
3701 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
3704 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
3707 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
3708 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
3710 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
3712 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
3713 the symbol had be read by `read'.
3715 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
3716 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
3717 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
3718 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
3719 would if STRING were input.
3721 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
3723 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
3724 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
3725 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
3726 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
3729 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
3731 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
3732 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
3735 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
3737 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
3738 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
3740 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
3741 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
3743 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
3744 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
3745 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
3746 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
3748 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
3749 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
3751 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
3752 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
3753 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
3755 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
3756 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
3758 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
3759 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
3760 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
3761 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
3762 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
3764 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
3765 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
3766 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
3767 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
3768 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
3769 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
3771 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
3772 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
3773 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
3776 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
3777 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
3778 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
3779 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
3780 the following grammar:
3781 ((apples (single-char #\a))
3782 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
3783 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
3784 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
3785 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
3786 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
3787 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
3788 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
3789 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
3790 last option in its combination)
3792 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
3793 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
3794 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
3795 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
3797 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
3798 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
3799 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
3801 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3802 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3803 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
3805 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
3806 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
3807 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
3808 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
3809 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
3810 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
3811 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
3812 ordinary argument strings.
3814 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
3815 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
3816 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
3817 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
3819 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
3820 as a list, associated with the empty list.
3822 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
3823 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
3824 - a required option is omitted
3825 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
3826 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
3827 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
3828 - an option predicate fails
3833 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
3836 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
3837 (verbose (required? #f)
3840 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
3841 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
3842 (predicate ,string?))))
3844 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
3845 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3847 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3848 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
3849 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
3850 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
3853 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
3855 It will be removed in a few releases.
3857 ** New syntax: lambda*
3858 ** New syntax: define*
3859 ** New syntax: define*-public
3860 ** New syntax: defmacro*
3861 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
3862 Guile now supports optional arguments.
3864 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
3865 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
3866 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
3867 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
3868 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
3870 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
3871 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
3872 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
3874 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
3876 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
3877 and examples for `lambda*':
3880 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
3882 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
3883 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
3884 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
3885 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
3886 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
3887 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
3888 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
3889 can be checked with the bound? macro.
3891 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
3893 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
3894 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
3895 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
3896 are given as keywords are bound to values.
3898 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
3899 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
3900 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
3901 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
3902 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
3903 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
3904 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
3905 and until the procedure is called.
3907 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
3909 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
3910 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
3911 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
3912 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
3913 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
3914 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
3915 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
3916 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
3917 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
3918 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
3920 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
3921 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
3922 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
3923 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
3926 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
3928 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
3929 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
3930 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
3931 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
3933 ** New syntax: and-let*
3934 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
3936 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
3937 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
3938 (<variable> <expression>)
3941 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
3942 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
3943 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
3946 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
3947 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
3948 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
3949 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
3950 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
3951 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
3952 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
3954 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
3955 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
3956 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
3957 shadow earlier bindings.
3959 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
3961 ** New sorting functions
3963 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
3964 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
3965 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
3966 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
3968 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
3969 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
3972 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
3973 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
3974 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
3976 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
3977 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
3978 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
3979 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
3981 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
3982 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
3983 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
3984 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
3985 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
3988 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
3989 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
3990 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
3991 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
3992 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
3993 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
3995 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
3996 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
3997 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
3999 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4000 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
4001 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
4004 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
4005 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
4006 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
4008 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
4009 Added for compatibility with scsh.
4011 ** New built-in random number support
4013 *** New function: random N [STATE]
4014 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
4015 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
4016 returned have a uniform distribution.
4018 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
4019 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
4020 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
4021 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
4022 effect of the `random' operation.
4024 *** New variable: *random-state*
4025 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
4026 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
4027 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
4028 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
4029 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
4032 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
4033 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4034 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4035 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
4036 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
4038 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
4039 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4040 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4041 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
4042 initialized using SEED.
4044 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
4045 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
4046 range between 0 and 1.
4048 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4049 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
4050 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
4051 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
4052 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
4053 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
4054 or a uniform vector of doubles.
4056 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4057 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
4058 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
4059 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
4060 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
4061 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4063 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
4064 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
4065 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
4066 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
4068 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
4069 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
4070 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
4071 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4073 *** New function: random:exp STATE
4074 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
4075 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
4077 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
4079 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
4082 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
4083 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
4086 ** New function: make-guardian
4087 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
4088 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
4089 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
4090 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
4091 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
4093 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
4094 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
4095 one object if at all.
4097 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
4098 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
4099 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
4101 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
4102 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
4103 read again in last-in first-out order.
4105 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
4106 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
4108 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
4110 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
4111 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
4112 file position is used.
4114 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
4115 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
4116 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
4118 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
4119 redefined using seek.
4121 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
4122 size is not supplied.
4124 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
4125 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
4127 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
4128 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
4130 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
4132 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
4133 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
4134 and returns the contents as a single string.
4136 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
4137 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
4138 lists in serial order.
4140 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
4141 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
4142 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
4144 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
4145 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
4146 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
4147 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
4149 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
4150 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
4151 and #f if an error occured.
4153 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
4155 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
4156 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
4157 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
4158 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
4160 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
4162 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
4165 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
4167 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
4170 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4174 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
4175 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
4177 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
4178 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
4182 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4184 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
4186 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
4187 binds a variable named NAME to it.
4189 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
4191 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
4192 might change when we get the new module system.
4194 ** The smob interface
4196 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
4197 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
4199 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
4201 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
4205 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
4206 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
4207 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
4208 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
4209 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
4210 will be freed by the default free function.
4212 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4213 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
4214 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4215 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4217 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4218 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
4219 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4220 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4222 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
4224 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
4225 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
4229 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
4230 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4231 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4233 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
4234 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
4235 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4236 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4238 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
4239 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
4240 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
4242 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
4243 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
4244 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
4245 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
4247 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
4248 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
4249 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
4251 *** scm_newptob has been removed
4255 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
4257 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
4258 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
4259 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
4261 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
4262 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
4263 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
4265 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
4266 a string port's buffer.
4268 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
4269 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
4270 function pointers which together define the current random number
4271 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
4272 number library functions.
4274 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
4277 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
4278 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
4281 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
4282 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4284 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
4285 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
4287 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
4288 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
4291 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
4292 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
4293 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
4294 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
4296 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
4297 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
4298 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
4299 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
4300 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
4301 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
4302 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
4304 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
4305 by libguile and the application.
4307 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4308 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4309 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
4310 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
4312 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
4313 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
4315 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4316 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
4317 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
4319 ** Random number library functions
4320 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
4321 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
4322 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
4324 The default random state is stored in:
4326 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
4327 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
4328 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
4333 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
4335 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
4336 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
4337 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
4338 isn't a random state.
4340 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
4341 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
4343 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
4344 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
4345 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
4346 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
4348 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4349 Return 32 random bits.
4351 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4352 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
4354 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4355 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
4357 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4358 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
4360 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
4361 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4363 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
4364 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4365 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
4369 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
4371 * Changes to the distribution
4373 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
4374 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
4375 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
4378 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
4379 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
4380 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
4382 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
4383 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
4384 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
4385 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
4388 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
4389 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
4390 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
4392 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4394 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
4396 *** Function: batch-mode?
4398 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
4401 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
4403 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
4404 case has not been implemented.
4406 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
4407 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
4408 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
4411 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
4412 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
4414 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
4416 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4418 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
4420 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
4421 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
4424 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
4425 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
4426 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
4427 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
4430 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
4432 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
4433 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
4434 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
4435 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
4436 find those libraries.
4438 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
4439 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
4442 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
4444 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
4445 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
4446 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
4447 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
4449 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
4450 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
4451 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
4455 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
4457 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
4458 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
4459 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
4462 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
4463 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
4464 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
4465 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
4467 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
4468 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
4471 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
4472 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
4473 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
4474 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
4475 compiler where to find the libraries.
4477 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
4478 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
4479 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
4481 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
4482 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
4483 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
4484 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
4485 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
4489 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4491 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
4492 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
4493 internationalization support.
4495 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
4496 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
4497 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
4498 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
4499 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
4501 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
4502 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
4503 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
4504 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
4505 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
4507 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
4508 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
4509 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
4510 any GNU mirror site.
4512 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
4514 ** New function: add-history STRING
4515 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
4516 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
4517 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
4519 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
4521 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
4522 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
4523 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
4526 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
4527 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
4528 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
4530 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
4532 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
4535 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
4536 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
4539 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
4540 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
4541 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
4542 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
4543 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
4544 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
4546 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
4547 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
4548 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
4549 of the form mentioned above.
4551 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
4552 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
4553 returned in the special `rest' list.
4555 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
4556 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
4558 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
4560 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
4562 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
4564 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
4565 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
4566 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
4567 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
4568 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
4569 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
4570 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
4571 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
4574 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
4576 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
4578 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
4579 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
4582 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
4583 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
4584 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
4588 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
4589 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
4590 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
4591 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
4592 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
4593 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
4594 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
4595 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
4598 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
4600 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
4601 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
4602 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
4604 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
4606 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
4607 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
4609 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
4610 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
4611 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
4613 Why do we have this function?
4614 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
4615 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
4616 primitive, and display it differently, and
4617 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
4618 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
4621 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
4622 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
4625 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
4626 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
4627 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
4628 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
4630 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
4631 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
4634 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
4635 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
4637 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
4639 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
4640 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
4641 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
4642 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
4643 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
4644 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
4645 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
4648 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
4650 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
4651 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
4653 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
4654 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
4655 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
4656 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
4657 properly continue the print chain.
4659 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
4660 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
4661 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
4662 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
4663 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
4664 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
4665 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
4666 print-state, it is simply ignored.
4668 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
4669 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
4670 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
4671 safest to not check for these pairs.
4673 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
4674 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
4675 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
4676 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
4678 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
4680 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
4681 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
4683 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
4685 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
4687 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
4688 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
4689 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
4691 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
4692 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
4693 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
4695 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
4696 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
4697 the following functions and macros:
4699 Function: make-fluid
4701 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
4702 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
4703 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
4704 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
4705 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
4707 Function: fluid? OBJ
4709 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
4711 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
4712 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
4714 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
4715 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
4717 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
4719 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
4720 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
4721 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
4722 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
4723 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
4724 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
4725 modified by `with-fluids*'.
4727 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
4729 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
4730 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
4731 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
4732 should evaluate to a fluid.
4734 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
4736 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
4737 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
4738 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
4739 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
4740 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
4742 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
4745 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
4747 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
4749 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
4751 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
4754 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
4755 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
4756 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
4757 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
4758 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
4761 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
4762 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
4763 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
4765 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
4766 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
4767 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
4769 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
4770 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
4771 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4772 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
4774 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
4775 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
4776 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4777 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
4779 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
4780 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
4781 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
4782 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
4784 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
4785 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
4786 their revealed counts set to zero.
4788 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4789 Returns an integer file descriptor.
4791 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4792 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
4794 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4795 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
4797 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4798 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
4799 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
4801 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
4802 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
4803 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
4805 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
4806 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
4807 default environment inherited by child processes.
4809 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
4810 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
4811 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
4813 The return value is unspecified.
4815 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
4816 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
4817 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
4818 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
4819 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
4821 The return value is unspecified.
4823 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
4824 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
4832 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
4833 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
4836 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
4839 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
4840 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
4841 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
4843 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
4844 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
4845 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
4846 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
4849 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
4850 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
4852 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
4853 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
4854 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
4855 the `environ' procedure.
4857 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
4858 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
4861 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
4862 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
4864 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
4865 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
4866 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
4867 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
4869 *** procedure: times
4870 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
4871 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
4872 return a selected component:
4875 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
4879 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
4882 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
4886 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
4887 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
4891 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
4892 terminated child processes.
4894 ** Removed: list-length
4895 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
4896 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
4898 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
4900 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
4902 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
4904 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
4905 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
4906 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
4907 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
4909 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
4910 extra complexity it introduces.
4912 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
4913 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
4915 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
4916 variable to any non-empty value.
4918 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
4919 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
4921 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4923 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
4924 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
4926 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
4928 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
4929 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
4931 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
4933 ** vector handling routines
4935 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
4936 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
4937 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
4938 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
4939 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
4941 ** pair and list routines
4943 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
4946 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
4948 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
4951 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4953 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
4955 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
4956 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
4957 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
4958 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
4959 site-specific initialization code.
4961 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
4962 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
4963 initialization processes.
4965 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
4966 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
4967 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
4968 initialized properly.
4970 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
4971 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
4972 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
4974 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
4975 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
4976 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
4977 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
4978 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
4980 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
4982 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
4983 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
4984 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
4985 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
4986 objects the smob refers to get marked.
4988 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
4989 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
4990 which look like this:
4993 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
4995 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
4996 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
4999 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
5000 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
5003 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
5005 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
5006 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
5007 you will need to change your functions slightly.
5009 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
5010 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
5011 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
5012 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
5013 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
5015 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
5016 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
5018 int (*free) (SCM port);
5019 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
5020 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
5021 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
5025 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
5026 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
5027 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
5029 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
5032 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
5033 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
5034 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
5036 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
5037 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
5038 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
5041 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
5045 struct timeval *timeout);
5047 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
5048 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
5049 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
5050 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
5051 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
5052 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
5054 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
5055 scm_catch_body_t body,
5057 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5060 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
5061 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
5062 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
5063 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
5064 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
5065 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
5067 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
5069 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5072 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
5073 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
5074 spawning threads from application C code.
5076 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
5077 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
5078 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
5079 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
5080 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
5081 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
5083 ** Removed functions:
5085 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
5086 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
5088 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
5090 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
5091 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
5093 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
5095 ** mbstrings are now removed
5097 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
5098 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
5100 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
5102 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
5103 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
5104 their new names and arguments:
5106 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
5107 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
5108 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
5109 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
5112 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
5114 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
5116 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
5119 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
5121 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
5122 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
5123 pass a #f arg to catch.
5125 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
5127 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
5128 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
5131 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
5132 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
5133 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
5134 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
5135 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
5136 reclaim its storage.
5138 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
5139 worrying that some other function you call will call
5140 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
5141 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
5142 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
5143 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
5146 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
5148 * Changes to the distribution
5150 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
5151 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
5154 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
5155 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
5157 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5158 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5160 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
5162 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
5163 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
5164 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
5166 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5168 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
5169 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
5170 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
5171 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
5172 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
5173 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
5175 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
5176 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
5177 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
5180 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
5181 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
5182 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
5183 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
5185 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
5186 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
5187 libraries to your link command:
5189 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
5190 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
5191 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5192 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5194 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
5195 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
5196 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
5198 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5200 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
5201 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
5204 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
5206 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
5207 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
5208 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
5209 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
5210 searched is system dependent.
5212 (dynamic-object? VAL)
5214 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
5216 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
5218 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
5219 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
5221 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5223 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
5224 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
5225 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
5226 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
5227 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
5230 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5232 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
5233 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
5234 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
5235 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
5236 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
5238 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
5240 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
5241 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
5243 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
5245 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
5246 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
5247 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
5250 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
5252 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
5253 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
5254 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
5255 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
5257 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
5258 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
5260 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
5262 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
5263 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
5265 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
5267 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
5268 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
5276 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
5278 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
5279 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
5280 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
5281 a more informative way.
5283 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
5284 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
5285 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
5286 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
5287 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
5288 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
5290 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
5291 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
5294 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
5295 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
5296 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
5299 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
5300 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
5301 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
5302 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
5303 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
5304 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
5306 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
5307 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
5308 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
5309 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
5312 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
5313 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
5314 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
5315 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
5316 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
5317 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
5319 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
5320 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
5321 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
5322 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
5323 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
5325 *** regexp functions
5327 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
5328 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
5329 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
5331 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
5332 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
5333 with SCSH regular expressions.
5335 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
5336 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
5337 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
5338 position of STR at which to begin matching.
5340 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
5341 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
5342 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
5343 `string-match' returns `#f'.
5345 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
5346 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
5347 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
5348 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
5349 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
5350 match strings against the compiled regexp.
5352 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
5353 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
5354 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
5355 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
5356 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
5358 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5360 **** Constant: regexp/extended
5361 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
5362 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
5363 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
5365 **** Constant: regexp/icase
5366 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
5367 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
5369 **** Constant: regexp/newline
5370 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
5372 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
5375 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
5376 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5377 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
5379 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
5380 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5381 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
5383 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
5384 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
5385 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
5386 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
5387 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
5390 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5392 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
5393 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
5394 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
5395 used when different portions of a string are passed to
5396 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
5397 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
5399 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
5400 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
5401 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
5403 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
5404 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
5407 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
5408 and replace them with the contents of another string.
5410 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
5411 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
5412 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
5413 may be one of the following arguments:
5415 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
5417 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
5419 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
5420 the regexp match is written.
5422 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
5423 following the regexp match is written.
5425 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
5426 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
5429 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
5430 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
5431 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
5432 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
5433 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
5434 which should be matched against this regular expression.
5436 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
5439 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
5440 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
5441 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
5442 written out to PORT.
5444 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
5445 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
5446 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
5447 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
5448 will return after processing a single match.
5450 *** Match Structures
5452 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
5453 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
5454 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
5455 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
5456 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
5457 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
5460 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
5461 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
5462 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
5463 information about the original target string that was matched against a
5464 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
5466 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
5467 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
5468 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
5470 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
5471 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
5472 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
5473 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
5474 number N did not match, return `#f'.
5476 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
5477 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
5479 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
5480 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
5482 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
5483 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
5485 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
5486 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
5488 **** Function: match:count MATCH
5489 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
5490 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
5491 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
5493 **** Function: match:string MATCH
5494 Return the original TARGET string.
5496 *** Backslash Escapes
5498 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
5499 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
5500 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
5501 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
5502 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
5503 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
5505 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
5506 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
5507 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
5508 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
5509 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
5510 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
5511 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
5512 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
5514 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
5515 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
5516 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
5517 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
5518 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
5519 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
5520 each match a single backslash in the target string.
5522 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
5523 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
5524 return the resulting string.
5526 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
5527 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
5528 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
5529 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
5530 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
5531 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
5532 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
5533 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
5534 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
5535 translated to the single character `*'.
5537 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
5538 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
5539 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
5540 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
5541 consecutive backslashes:
5543 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
5545 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
5546 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
5547 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
5549 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
5550 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
5551 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
5552 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
5553 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
5554 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
5556 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
5558 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
5559 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
5560 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
5561 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
5562 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
5563 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
5564 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
5565 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
5566 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
5567 cumbersome escape syntax.
5569 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5571 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5573 * Changes to system call interfaces:
5575 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
5578 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
5580 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
5582 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
5585 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
5586 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
5587 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
5588 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
5589 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
5591 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
5592 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
5593 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
5594 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
5595 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
5596 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
5597 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
5600 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
5601 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
5602 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
5605 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
5606 `force-output' on every port open for output.
5608 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
5609 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
5610 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
5611 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
5612 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
5613 installed, you can say:
5615 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
5618 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5620 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
5621 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
5622 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
5623 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
5624 new dynamic roots and threads.
5627 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
5629 * Changes to the distribution.
5631 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
5633 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
5634 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
5635 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
5636 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
5637 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
5638 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
5639 programming language. These are packaged together because the
5640 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
5642 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
5645 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
5646 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
5651 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5653 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
5654 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
5656 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
5657 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
5658 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
5659 the (command-line) function.
5660 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
5661 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
5662 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
5664 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
5665 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
5666 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
5667 command line arguments
5668 -ds do -s script at this point
5669 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
5670 -h, --help display this help and exit
5671 -v, --version display version information and exit
5672 \ read arguments from following script lines
5674 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
5675 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
5677 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5680 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5684 (main (command-line))
5686 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
5688 ekko a speckled gecko
5690 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
5691 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
5692 following list of command-line arguments:
5694 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
5696 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
5697 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
5698 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
5699 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
5700 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5702 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
5704 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
5706 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
5707 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
5710 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
5711 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
5712 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
5713 SCSH) for circumventing them.
5715 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
5716 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
5717 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
5718 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
5720 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
5724 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5728 If the user invokes this script as follows:
5730 ekko a speckled gecko
5732 Unix expands this into
5734 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
5736 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
5737 read from the second line of the script, producing:
5739 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
5741 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
5742 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5744 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
5745 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
5746 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
5747 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
5748 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
5749 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
5750 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
5751 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
5752 it only terminates the argument list.)
5753 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
5754 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
5755 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
5756 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
5757 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
5758 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
5759 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
5760 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
5762 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5764 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
5765 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
5766 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
5767 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
5768 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
5770 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
5771 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
5772 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
5774 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
5776 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
5777 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
5778 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
5779 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
5782 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
5783 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5784 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5786 * Changes to Scheme functions
5788 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
5789 and disabled by default.
5791 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
5792 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
5793 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
5794 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
5796 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
5798 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
5800 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
5801 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
5803 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
5804 (read-set! keywords #f)
5806 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
5807 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
5808 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
5811 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
5812 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
5813 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
5816 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
5817 support for Scheme functions.
5819 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5820 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
5821 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
5822 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
5825 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5826 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
5827 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
5830 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
5831 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
5832 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
5835 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
5836 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
5837 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
5838 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
5839 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
5840 display the result as a prompt.
5841 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
5843 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
5844 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
5845 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
5848 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
5849 procedure of zero arguments.
5851 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
5852 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
5853 argument is bound in the current module.
5855 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
5856 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
5857 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
5858 public bindings into the current module.
5860 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
5861 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
5863 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
5864 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
5866 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
5867 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
5869 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
5870 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
5872 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
5873 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
5875 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
5876 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
5877 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
5878 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
5879 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
5881 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
5882 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
5883 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
5884 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
5886 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
5889 ** Changes to I/O functions
5891 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
5892 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
5893 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
5895 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
5896 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
5897 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
5899 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
5900 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
5902 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
5903 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
5904 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
5905 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
5907 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
5909 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
5910 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
5912 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
5913 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
5914 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
5915 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
5916 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
5919 'trim omit delimiter from result
5920 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
5921 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
5922 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
5924 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
5926 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
5927 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
5929 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
5930 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
5931 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
5932 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
5933 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
5935 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
5936 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
5937 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
5939 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
5940 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
5941 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
5942 above, and defaults to 'peek.
5944 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
5945 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
5947 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
5948 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
5950 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
5952 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
5953 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
5954 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
5955 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
5956 a delimiting character.
5957 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
5959 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
5960 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
5961 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
5962 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
5963 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
5964 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
5966 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
5967 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
5969 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
5970 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
5971 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
5973 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
5974 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
5975 the array to read and write.
5977 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
5978 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
5981 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
5983 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
5986 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
5987 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
5988 Values for COMMAND are:
5990 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
5991 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
5992 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
5993 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
5994 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
5995 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
5996 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
5997 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
5999 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
6001 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
6002 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
6003 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
6004 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
6005 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
6006 corresponding return set will be the same.
6008 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
6011 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
6012 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
6013 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
6014 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
6015 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
6016 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
6017 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
6018 special file being created.
6020 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
6021 clashing with various SCSH forks.
6023 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
6024 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
6025 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
6026 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
6027 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
6028 and originating address.
6030 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
6031 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
6032 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
6034 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
6037 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
6038 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
6041 (status:exit-val STATUS)
6042 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
6043 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
6044 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
6045 this function returns #f.
6047 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
6048 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
6049 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
6052 (status:term-sig STATUS)
6053 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
6054 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
6057 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
6058 a valid STATUS value.
6060 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
6062 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
6063 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
6065 Component Accessor Setter
6066 ========================= ============ ============
6067 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
6068 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
6069 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
6070 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
6071 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
6072 year tm:year set-tm:year
6073 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
6074 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
6075 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
6076 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
6077 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
6079 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
6080 describing the host system:
6083 ============================================== ================
6084 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
6085 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
6086 release level of the operating system utsname:release
6087 version level of the operating system utsname:version
6088 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
6090 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
6091 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
6092 system's user database:
6095 ====================== =================
6096 user name passwd:name
6097 user password passwd:passwd
6100 real name passwd:gecos
6101 home directory passwd:dir
6102 shell program passwd:shell
6104 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
6105 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
6106 system's group database:
6109 ======================= ============
6110 group name group:name
6111 group password group:passwd
6113 group members group:mem
6115 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
6116 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
6120 ========================= ===============
6121 official name of host hostent:name
6122 alias list hostent:aliases
6123 host address type hostent:addrtype
6124 length of address hostent:length
6125 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
6127 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
6128 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
6132 ========================= ===============
6133 official name of net netent:name
6134 alias list netent:aliases
6135 net number type netent:addrtype
6136 net number netent:net
6138 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
6139 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
6143 ========================= ===============
6144 official protocol name protoent:name
6145 alias list protoent:aliases
6146 protocol number protoent:proto
6148 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
6149 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
6153 ========================= ===============
6154 official service name servent:name
6155 alias list servent:aliases
6156 port number servent:port
6157 protocol to use servent:proto
6159 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
6160 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
6163 ======================================== ===============
6164 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
6165 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
6166 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
6167 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
6169 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
6170 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
6171 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
6173 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
6174 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
6176 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
6177 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
6179 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
6180 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
6182 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
6184 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
6186 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
6187 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
6188 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
6190 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
6191 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
6192 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
6193 return the remaining characters as a string.
6195 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
6196 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
6197 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
6199 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
6201 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6203 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
6206 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
6209 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
6210 and returns the array
6212 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
6213 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
6214 the user to interpret the data both ways.
6216 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6218 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
6219 symbol's value from C code:
6221 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
6222 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
6223 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
6224 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
6226 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
6227 without assigning them a value.
6229 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
6230 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
6231 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
6233 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
6234 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
6235 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
6237 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
6238 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
6240 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
6241 doesn't actually care about that.
6243 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
6244 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
6245 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
6247 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
6248 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
6249 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
6250 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
6251 which we have just created and initialized.
6253 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
6254 should one occur. We call it like this:
6255 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
6257 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
6258 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
6259 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
6260 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
6261 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
6262 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
6265 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
6266 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
6267 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
6268 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
6269 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
6270 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
6271 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
6274 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
6275 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
6276 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
6277 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
6278 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
6281 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
6282 scm_internal_catch, except:
6284 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
6285 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
6286 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
6287 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
6290 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
6291 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
6292 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
6294 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
6295 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
6296 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
6297 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
6300 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
6301 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
6302 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
6304 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
6305 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
6306 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
6307 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
6308 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
6310 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
6311 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
6312 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
6314 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
6315 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
6316 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
6318 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
6319 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
6321 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
6322 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
6323 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
6326 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
6327 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
6328 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
6329 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
6330 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
6331 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
6332 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
6335 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
6336 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
6338 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
6339 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
6340 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
6341 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
6342 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
6345 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
6346 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
6348 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
6349 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
6352 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
6353 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
6355 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6358 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
6359 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
6360 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
6361 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
6362 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
6363 given the following arguments:
6365 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6367 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
6369 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
6371 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6374 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
6375 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
6376 command-line arguments.
6378 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
6379 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
6380 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
6381 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
6382 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
6383 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
6386 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6389 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
6390 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
6392 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
6393 rearranged slightly. They are now:
6395 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6396 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6397 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
6398 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
6400 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6401 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6403 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6404 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
6405 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6406 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
6408 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6409 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6411 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
6412 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
6414 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
6416 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
6417 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
6418 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
6421 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
6422 returns a port instead of an FD object.
6424 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
6425 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
6430 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
6433 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
6435 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
6436 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
6437 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
6438 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
6440 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
6442 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
6444 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
6445 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
6446 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
6447 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
6448 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
6449 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
6450 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
6451 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
6452 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
6453 for more information.
6455 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
6456 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
6458 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
6459 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
6460 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
6461 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
6462 following two lines at the top of the file:
6464 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6467 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
6468 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
6469 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
6471 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
6473 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6475 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
6478 (display (car args))
6479 (if (pair? (cdr args))
6481 (loop (cdr args)))))
6484 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
6485 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
6486 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
6487 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
6488 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
6489 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
6493 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
6496 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
6499 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
6501 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
6502 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
6503 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
6504 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
6505 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
6508 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
6509 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
6510 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
6511 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
6512 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
6515 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
6518 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
6519 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
6520 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
6523 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
6524 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
6525 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
6527 to see a backtrace, and
6528 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
6529 to see them by default.
6533 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
6535 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
6537 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
6538 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
6541 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
6542 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
6543 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
6544 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
6547 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
6548 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
6549 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
6550 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
6551 functions which inspired them.
6553 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
6554 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
6558 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
6560 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
6562 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
6563 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
6566 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
6567 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
6568 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
6570 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
6571 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
6572 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
6573 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
6574 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
6576 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
6578 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
6579 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
6580 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
6583 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
6586 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
6588 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
6589 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
6590 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
6591 above should serve their purposes.
6593 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
6594 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
6595 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
6596 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
6598 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
6601 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
6602 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
6603 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
6604 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
6606 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
6607 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
6608 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
6609 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
6611 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
6612 for the `read' function.
6615 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
6616 to that of `integer?'.
6618 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
6619 use the R4RS names for these functions.
6621 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
6622 it simply returns the object's property list.
6624 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
6625 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
6626 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
6627 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
6629 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
6631 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
6634 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
6636 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
6637 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
6639 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
6641 void (*main_func) (),
6644 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
6645 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
6646 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
6647 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
6648 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
6650 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
6651 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
6652 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
6653 know which arguments have been processed.
6655 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
6656 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
6657 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
6658 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
6659 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
6661 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
6662 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
6663 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
6664 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
6665 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
6666 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
6667 people from making that mistake.
6669 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
6670 convenient ways to override these when desired.
6672 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
6674 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
6678 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
6681 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
6682 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
6683 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
6684 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
6687 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
6688 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
6689 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
6690 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
6693 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
6694 have been added to the Guile library.
6696 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
6697 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
6698 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
6701 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
6702 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
6703 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
6705 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
6706 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
6707 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
6708 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
6709 argument from the list.
6712 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
6715 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
6716 null-terminated string, and returns it.
6718 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
6719 to a Scheme port object.
6721 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
6722 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
6727 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
6729 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
6730 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
6731 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
6732 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
6733 code as a special datatype.
6735 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
6736 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
6737 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
6738 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
6739 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
6742 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
6743 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
6744 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
6745 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
6746 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
6748 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
6751 Copyright information:
6753 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6755 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
6756 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
6757 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
6758 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
6760 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
6761 of this document, or of portions of it,
6762 under the above conditions, provided also that they
6763 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
6768 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"