1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
8 Changes in 2.0.4 (since 2.0.3):
12 ** Better debuggability for interpreted procedures
14 Guile 2.0 came with a great debugging experience for compiled
15 procedures, but the story for interpreted procedures was terrible. Now,
16 at least, interpreted procedures have names, and the 'arity procedure
17 property is always as correct (or, as it can be, in the presence of
20 ** Support for cross-compilation.
22 One can now use a native Guile to cross-compile `.go' files for a
23 different architecture. See the documentation for `--target' in the
24 "Compilation" section of the manual, for how to use the cross-compiler.
25 See the "Cross building Guile" section of the README, for more on how to
26 cross-compile Guile itself.
28 ** Fluids can now have default values.
30 Fluids are used for dynamic and thread-local binding. They have always
31 inherited their values from the context or thread that created them.
32 However, there was a case in which a new thread would enter Guile, and
33 the default values of all the fluids would be `#f' for that thread.
35 This has now been fixed so that `make-fluid' has an optional default
36 value, which defaults to `#f'.
38 ** Garbage collector tuning.
40 The garbage collector has now been tuned to run more often under some
43 *** Unmanaged allocation
45 The new `scm_gc_register_allocation' function will notify the collector
46 of unmanaged allocation. This will cause the collector to run sooner.
47 Guile's `scm_malloc', `scm_calloc', and `scm_realloc' unmanaged
48 allocators eventually call this function. This leads to better
49 performance under steady-state unmanaged allocation.
51 *** Transient allocation
53 When the collector runs, it will try to record the total memory
54 footprint of a process, if the platform supports this information. If
55 the memory footprint is growing, the collector will run more frequently.
56 This reduces the increase of the resident size of a process in response
57 to a transient increase in allocation.
59 *** Management of threads, bignums
61 Creating a thread will allocate a fair amount of memory. Guile now does
62 some GC work (using `GC_collect_a_little') when allocating a thread.
63 This leads to a better memory footprint when creating many short-lived
66 Similarly, bignums can occupy a lot of memory. Guile now offers hooks
67 to enable custom GMP allocators that end up calling
68 scm_gc_register_allocation'. These allocators are enabled by default
69 when running Guile from the command-line. To enable them in libraries,
70 set the `scm_install_gmp_memory_functions' variable to a nonzero value
73 Thanks to Mark Weaver for inspiration.
75 ** SRFI-39 parameters are available by default.
77 Guile now includes support for "parameters", as defined by SRFI-39, in
78 the default environment. See
79 * module/ice-9/boot-9.scm (<parameter>, make-parameter, parameter?)
80 (parameter-fluid, parameter-converter, parameterize): New top-level
81 bindings, implementing SRFI-39 parameters. Currently,
82 current-input-port and similar procedures are not yet parameters.
84 ** add current-warning-port
87 * libguile/ports.c (scm_current_warning_port)
88 (scm_set_current_warning_port): New functions, wrapping the Scheme
91 * module/ice-9/boot-9.scm (current-warning-port): New parameter,
92 defining a port for warnings.
94 warnings written to warning port
96 * libguile/deprecation.c (scm_c_issue_deprecation_warning):
97 * libguile/load.c (auto_compile_catch_handler):
98 (scm_sys_warn_auto_compilation_enabled, scm_primitive_load_path):
99 * module/ice-9/boot-9.scm (warn, %load-announce, duplicate-handlers)
101 * module/system/base/message.scm (warning): Write to the warning port.
102 (*current-warning-port*): Alias the warning port.
105 ** add define-syntax-parameter, same as define-syntax
107 * module/ice-9/psyntax.scm (define-syntax-parameter): New toplevel form.
108 Will be used to implement syntax parameters, following Barzilay,
109 Culpepper, and Flatt's 2011 SFP workshop paper, "Keeping it Clean with
110 syntax-parameterize". Adds a new binding type and definition form.
112 ** deprecate fluid-let-syntax in favor of syntax-parameterize
114 * module/ice-9/psyntax.scm (syntax-parameterize): Rename from
117 Author: Ian Price <ianprice90@googlemail.com>
118 Date: Sat Jan 7 01:59:33 2012 +0000
120 document syntax parameters
122 * doc/ref/api-macros.texi (Macros): Add subsection for "Syntax Parameters"
124 ** primitive-load returns the value(s) of the last expression
126 * libguile/load.c (scm_primitive_load): Return the values yielded from
127 evaluating the last expression in the file.
131 ** Fix R6RS `fold-left' so the accumulator is the first argument.
132 ** fix <dynwind> serialization.
133 ** Fix bugs in the new optimizer.
135 The new `peval' optimizer had three bugs: one related to dynamic-wind,
136 one regarding propagation of expressions that yield multiple values, and
137 one that would mistakenly turn (cons 'foo #nil) into (list 'foo). These
140 ** when leaving a non-tail let, allow bound vals to be collected
142 * module/language/tree-il/compile-glil.scm (flatten-lambda-case): Clear
143 lexical stack slots at the end of a non-tail let, letrec, or fix.
144 Fixes http://debbugs.gnu.org/9900.
146 ** fix bit-set*! bug (!)
148 * libguile/bitvectors.c (scm_bit_set_star_x): Fix a long-standing (since
149 2005) bug in which instead of using the kv bitvector, we actually use
150 the `v' bitvector. Also, change to allow `kv' being shorter than
153 ** fix bug in make-repl when lang is actually a language
155 * module/system/repl/common.scm (make-repl): Fix to accept language
156 objects in addition to symbols. Fixes http://debbugs.gnu.org/9857.
157 Thanks to Tristan Colgate for the report.
159 ** hack the port-column of current-output-port after printing a prompt
161 * module/ice-9/boot-9.scm (repl-reader): Reset the output-column to 0
162 after printing the prompt. Fixes bug 9664.
164 ** FFI: Hold a weak reference to the CIF made by `procedure->pointer'.
166 * libguile/foreign.c (scm_procedure_to_pointer): Keep a weak reference
167 to CIF so that it is not reclaimed before POINTER. Before that it
168 could be reclaimed and typically reused to store the CIF of another
169 procedure with the same arity, leading to obscure wrong-type-arg
172 ** Allow overlapping regions to be passed to `bytevector-copy!'.
174 Reported by Dmitry Chestnykh <dmitry@codingrobots.com>.
175 Fixes <http://debbugs.gnu.org/10070>.
177 ** Fix `validate-target' in (system base target).
179 * module/system/base/target.scm (validate-target): Accept any tuple with
182 ** fix validators for various list-style headers
184 commit 69b8c5df14dbc1f9602925788507d371a529dfbe
185 Author: Daniel Hartwig <mandyke@gmail.com>
186 Date: Wed Nov 23 20:56:10 2011 +0100
188 * module/web/http.scm (default-val-validator): Valid with no value.
189 (key-value-list?): Keys are always symbols, do not accept strings.
190 (validate-param-list): Apply `valid?' to list elements.
191 (validate-credentials): Validate param for Basic scheme, which
192 is parsed as a string.
193 (declare-symbol-list-header!): `list-of?' args were in wrong order.
194 ("Cache-Control"): Replace `default-val-validator' with more
196 ("Accept"): Validate on first param which has no value.
198 ** FFI: Hold a weak reference to the procedure passed to `procedure->pointer'.
200 * libguile/foreign.c (scm_procedure_to_pointer): Keep a weak reference
203 * test-suite/tests/foreign.test ("procedure->pointer")["procedure is
204 retained"]: New test.
206 ** ,language at REPL sets current-language
208 * module/system/repl/command.scm (language): Set the
210 * module/system/repl/repl.scm (start-repl): Create a new dynamic scope
211 for *current-language*.
213 ** new print option escape-newlines, defaults to #t
215 * libguile/private-options.h (SCM_PRINT_ESCAPE_NEWLINES_P):
216 * libguile/print.c: Add new escape-newlines print option, defaulting to
218 (write_character): For newlines, if SCM_PRINT_ESCAPE_NEWLINES_P, then
220 (scm_init_print): Refactor print options initialization.
222 ** allow URIs of the form file:///etc/hosts
224 * module/web/uri.scm (parse-authority): Allow empty authorities, so that
225 we accept URIs of the form, file:///etc/hosts.
227 ** peval: Truncate multiple values when extending the environment.
229 Reported by Cédric Cellier <rixed@happyleptic.org>.
231 ** Add an exception printer for `getaddrinfo-error'.
233 * module/ice-9/boot-9.scm (getaddrinfo-error-printer): New procedure.
234 Use it as the `getaddrinfo-error' exception printer.
236 ** current-input-port et al are srfi-39 parameters
238 ** add an apropos-hook to ice-9 session
240 * module/ice-9/session.scm: #:keyword-ify the define-module form, and
242 (apropos-hook): New hook.
243 (apropos, apropos-fold): Run the apropos-hook.
245 ** Add `file-system-fold' and `file-system-tree' to (ice-9 ftw).
247 * doc/ref/misc-modules.texi (File Tree Walk): Document
248 `file-system-tree' and `file-system-fold'.
250 ** Arrange to convert command-line arguments from the right encoding.
252 This is a temporary workaround for the 2.0 stable series. The next
253 stable series should have an implicit `setlocale (LC_ALL, "")' call,
254 which will make this unnecessary.
256 * libguile/feature.c (progargs_fluid): Rename to...
257 (scm_program_arguments_fluid): ... this. Update users.
259 * libguile/feature.h (scm_program_arguments_fluid): New internal
262 * libguile/init.c (invoke_main_func): Call
263 `scm_i_set_boot_program_arguments' instead of
264 `scm_set_program_arguments'.
266 * libguile/script.c (locale_arguments_to_string_list,
267 scm_i_set_boot_program_arguments): New functions.
268 (scm_compile_shell_switches): Use `locale_arguments_to_string_list'.
270 * libguile/script.h (scm_i_set_boot_program_arguments): New internal
273 * test-suite/standalone/Makefile.am (check_SCRIPTS, TESTS): Add
274 `test-command-line-encoding'.
275 * test-suite/standalone/test-command-line-encoding: New file.
277 ** ftw: Add `scandir'.
279 Suggested by Nala Ginrut <nalaginrut@gmail.com>.
281 * module/ice-9/ftw.scm (scandir): New procedure.
282 * test-suite/tests/ftw.test ("scandir"): New test prefix.
283 * doc/ref/misc-modules.texi (File Tree Walk): Document `scandir'.
285 ** FFI: Properly unpack small integer return values in closure call.
287 Fixes <http://debbugs.gnu.org/10203>.
289 commit a6ea740b3ca1174cc4414ef9b03659fe259d0fe6
290 Author: Andreas Schwab <schwab@linux-m68k.org>
291 Date: Sat Dec 3 12:17:46 2011 +0100
293 * libguile/foreign.c (unpack): Add parameter return_value_p.
294 Properly store integer return values smaller than int.
295 (scm_i_foreign_call): Update call to unpack.
296 (invoke_closure): Likewise.
298 libguile/foreign.c | 40 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---------
299 1 files changed, 31 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)
301 ** Add a deprecated alias for $expt
303 commit 3cc21d7995313782f6def1789ca0150e95c8363f
304 Author: Christian Persch <chpe@gnome.org>
305 Date: Thu Nov 24 23:10:21 2011 +0100
307 * module/ice-9/deprecated.scm: Add alias for $expt. $expt was removed
308 in commit 6fc4d0124d633d1b3ddc5af82967f23bd17556f8 but no deprecated
309 alias was added in ad79736c68a803a59814fbfc0cb4b092c2b4cddf like for
310 all the other deprecated $sin, $cos, ... functions.
312 module/ice-9/deprecated.scm | 5 +++++
313 1 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
315 ** document invalidity of (begin) as expression; add back-compat shim
317 * doc/ref/api-control.texi (begin): Update to distinguish between
318 splicing begin and sequencing begin.
320 * module/ice-9/psyntax.scm (expand-expr): Add a back-compatibility shim
323 ** peval fix: (cons 1 #nil) is not (list 1)
325 ** Extend handling of "Cache-Control" header.
327 Author: Daniel Hartwig <mandyke@gmail.com>
329 * module/web/http.scm ("Cache-Control"): Value for `max-stale' is
330 optional. Strict validation for value-less directives (`no-store',
331 etc.). String values optional for "cache-extension" directives.
332 * test-suite/tests/web-http.test: Value for `max-stale' is optional.
334 ** HTTP: Fix qstring writing of cache-extension values
336 * module/web/http.scm ("Cache-Control"): Write string values using the
337 default val writer, to get quoting correct.
339 ** freebsd build fixes (incomplete)
341 ** fix generalized-vector-{ref,set!} for slices
343 * libguile/generalized-vectors.c (scm_c_generalized_vector_ref):
344 (scm_c_generalized_vector_set_x): Fix for the case in which base was
345 not 1, lbnd was not 0, or inc was not 1.
347 * test-suite/tests/arrays.test (array): Add a test. Thanks to Daniel
348 Llorens for the report.
350 ** Fix erroneous check in `set-procedure-properties!'.
352 * libguile/procprop.c
353 (scm_set_procedure_properties_x)[SCM_ENABLE_DEPRECATED == 1]: Pass arguments
354 to `scm_assq' in the right order, and check its return value with
355 `scm_is_true'. Reported by Mike Gran <spk121@yahoo.com>.
357 ** `write-request-line' writes absolute paths, not absolute URIs.
359 commit ab66fb3cd1d6e4343741ccb406e17eb3314eba84
360 Author: Ian Price <ianprice90@googlemail.com>
361 Date: Thu Sep 29 03:12:00 2011 +0100
363 * module/web/http.scm (write-request-line): RFC 2616 says that absolute
364 paths are used to identify resources on an origin server.
366 ** don't leak file descriptors when mmaping objcode
368 * libguile/objcodes.c (make_objcode_from_file): Close the mmap'd file,
369 so that we don't leak the descriptor. I was previously under the
370 mistaken impression that closing the fd unmapped the memory, which is
371 not the case. Thanks to Cedric Cellier for the tip!
373 ** Fix bugs related to mutation, the null string, and shared substrings
375 * libguile/strings.c (scm_i_is_narrow_string, scm_i_try_narrow_string,
376 scm_i_string_set_x): Check to see if the provided string is a
377 mutation-sharing substring, and do the right thing in that case.
378 Previously, if such a string was passed to these functions, they would
379 behave very badly: while trying to fetch and/or mutate the cell
380 containing the stringbuf, they were actually fetching or mutating the
381 cell containing the original shared string. That's because
382 mutation-sharing substrings store the original string in CELL_1,
383 whereas all other strings store the stringbuf there.
385 ** deprecate SCM_ASRTGO
387 ** allow scm_display_error to use a stack as the first argument
389 * libguile/backtrace.c (scm_display_error): Allow a deprecated use of
390 this function to pass a stack as the first argument. Thanks to Peter
391 Brett for pointing it out, in
392 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-user/2011-06/msg00000.html.
394 ** i18n: Fix gc_malloc/free mismatch on non-GNU systems.
396 * libguile/i18n.c (scm_i_locale_free): Remove.
397 (smob_locale_free): Define only when USE_GNU_LOCALE_API.
398 (scm_make_locale)[!USE_GNU_LOCALE_API]: Allocate
399 `c_locale->locale_name' with `scm_gc_strdup', not `malloc'.
401 ** Make sure `regexp-quote' tests use Unicode-capable string ports.
403 * test-suite/tests/regexp.test (with-unicode): New macro.
404 ("regexp-quote"): Wrap all `regexp-quote' calls in it. This fixes
405 tests on machines where the default port encoding is US-ASCII.
407 ** Have `cpu-word-size' error out on unknown CPUs; add support for MIPSEL.
409 ** permit non-date values for Expires header
411 * module/web/http.scm ("Expires"): Permit (some) non-date values.
413 ** Remove null string optimization from scm_from_stringn
415 * libguile/strings.c (scm_from_stringn): Always return a freshly
416 allocated string from scm_from_stringn, even when asked to construct
417 the null string, in accordance with the R5RS. Previously, we
418 optimized the null string case by returning a reference to a global
419 null string object (scm_nullstr).
421 ** Empty substrings no longer reference the original stringbuf
423 * libguile/strings.c (scm_i_substring, scm_i_substring_read_only,
424 scm_i_substring_shared): When asked to create an empty substring,
425 return a freshly allocated null string. Previously, an empty
426 substring needlessly held a reference to the original stringbuf.
428 ** scm_i_substring_copy tries to narrow the substring
430 * libguile/strings.c (scm_i_substring_copy): Try to narrow the substring
431 if it came from a wide string.
433 ** Avoid calling `u32_conv_from_encoding' on the null string
435 * libguile/strings.c (scm_from_stringn): Avoid calling
436 `u32_conv_from_encoding' on the null string, by using the same
437 fast-path code used if (encoding == NULL). This is an optimization,
438 and also avoids any possible encoding errors.
440 Changes in 2.0.3 (since 2.0.2):
444 ** Guile has a new optimizer, `peval'.
446 `Peval' is a partial evaluator that performs constant folding, dead code
447 elimination, copy propagation, and inlining. By default it runs on
448 every piece of code that Guile compiles, to fold computations that can
449 happen at compile-time, so they don't have to happen at runtime.
451 If we did our job right, the only impact you would see would be your
452 programs getting faster. But if you notice slowdowns or bloated code,
453 please send a mail to bug-guile@gnu.org with details.
455 Thanks to William R. Cook, Oscar Waddell, and Kent Dybvig for inspiring
456 peval and its implementation.
458 You can see what peval does on a given piece of code by running the new
459 `,optimize' REPL meta-command, and comparing it to the output of
460 `,expand'. See "Compile Commands" in the manual, for more.
462 ** Fewer calls to `stat'.
464 Guile now stats only the .go file and the .scm file when loading a fresh
469 ** New module: `(web client)', a simple synchronous web client.
471 See "Web Client" in the manual, for more.
473 ** Users can now install compiled `.go' files.
475 See "Installing Site Packages" in the manual.
477 ** Remove Front-Cover and Back-Cover text from the manual.
479 The manual is still under the GNU Free Documentation License, but no
480 longer has any invariant sections.
482 ** More helpful `guild help'.
484 `guild' is Guile's multi-tool, for use in shell scripting. Now it has a
485 nicer interface for querying the set of existing commands, and getting
486 help on those commands. Try it out and see!
488 ** New macro: `define-syntax-rule'
490 `define-syntax-rule' is a shorthand to make a `syntax-rules' macro with
491 one clause. See "Syntax Rules" in the manual, for more.
493 ** The `,time' REPL meta-command now has more precision.
495 The output of this command now has microsecond precision, instead of
496 10-millisecond precision.
498 ** `(ice-9 match)' can now match records.
500 See "Pattern Matching" in the manual, for more on matching records.
502 ** New module: `(language tree-il debug)'.
504 This module provides a tree-il verifier. This is useful for people that
505 generate tree-il, usually as part of a language compiler.
507 ** New functions: `scm_is_exact', `scm_is_inexact'.
509 These provide a nice C interface for Scheme's `exact?' and `inexact?',
514 See the git log (or the ChangeLog) for more details on these bugs.
516 ** Fix order of importing modules and resolving duplicates handlers.
517 ** Fix a number of bugs involving extended (merged) generics.
518 ** Fix invocation of merge-generics duplicate handler.
519 ** Fix write beyond array end in arrays.c.
520 ** Fix read beyond end of hashtable size array in hashtab.c.
521 ** (web http): Locale-independent parsing and serialization of dates.
522 ** Ensure presence of Host header in HTTP/1.1 requests.
523 ** Fix take-right and drop-right for improper lists.
524 ** Fix leak in get_current_locale().
525 ** Fix recursive define-inlinable expansions.
526 ** Check that srfi-1 procedure arguments are procedures.
527 ** Fix r6rs `map' for multiple returns.
528 ** Fix scm_tmpfile leak on POSIX platforms.
529 ** Fix a couple of leaks (objcode->bytecode, make-boot-program).
530 ** Fix guile-lib back-compatibility for module-stexi-documentation.
531 ** Fix --listen option to allow other ports.
532 ** Fix scm_to_latin1_stringn for substrings.
533 ** Fix compilation of untyped arrays of rank not 1.
534 ** Fix unparse-tree-il of <dynset>.
535 ** Fix reading of #||||#.
536 ** Fix segfault in GOOPS when class fields are redefined.
537 ** Prefer poll(2) over select(2) to allow file descriptors above FD_SETSIZE.
540 Changes in 2.0.2 (since 2.0.1):
544 ** `guile-tools' renamed to `guild'
546 The new name is shorter. Its intended future use is for a CPAN-like
547 system for Guile wizards and journeyfolk to band together to share code;
548 hence the name. `guile-tools' is provided as a backward-compatible
549 symbolic link. See "Using Guile Tools" in the manual, for more.
551 ** New control operators: `shift' and `reset'
553 See "Shift and Reset" in the manual, for more information.
555 ** `while' as an expression
557 Previously the return value of `while' was unspecified. Now its
558 values are specified both in the case of normal termination, and via
559 termination by invoking `break', possibly with arguments. See "while
560 do" in the manual for more.
562 ** Disallow access to handles of weak hash tables
564 `hash-get-handle' and `hash-create-handle!' are no longer permitted to
565 be called on weak hash tables, because the fields in a weak handle could
566 be nulled out by the garbage collector at any time, but yet they are
567 otherwise indistinguishable from pairs. Use `hash-ref' and `hash-set!'
570 ** More precision for `get-internal-run-time', `get-internal-real-time'
572 On 64-bit systems which support POSIX clocks, Guile's internal timing
573 procedures offer nanosecond resolution instead of the 10-millisecond
574 resolution previously available. 32-bit systems now use 1-millisecond
577 ** Guile now measures time spent in GC
579 `gc-stats' now returns a meaningful value for `gc-time-taken'.
583 The statprof profiler now exports a `gcprof' procedure, driven by the
584 `after-gc-hook', to see which parts of your program are causing GC. Let
585 us know if you find it useful.
587 ** `map', `for-each' and some others now implemented in Scheme
589 We would not mention this in NEWS, as it is not a user-visible change,
590 if it were not for one thing: `map' and `for-each' are no longer
591 primitive generics. Instead they are normal bindings, which can be
592 wrapped by normal generics. This fixes some modularity issues between
593 core `map', SRFI-1 `map', and GOOPS.
595 Also it's pretty cool that we can do this without a performance impact.
597 ** Add `scm_peek_byte_or_eof'.
599 This helper is like `scm_peek_char_or_eof', but for bytes instead of
602 ** Implement #:stop-at-first-non-option option for getopt-long
604 See "getopt-long Reference" in the manual, for more information.
606 ** Improve R6RS conformance for conditions in the I/O libraries
608 The `(rnrs io simple)' module now raises the correct R6RS conditions in
609 error cases. `(rnrs io ports)' is also more correct now, though it is
610 still a work in progress.
612 ** All deprecated routines emit warnings
614 A few deprecated routines were lacking deprecation warnings. This has
619 ** Constants in compiled code now share state better
621 Constants with shared state, like `("foo")' and `"foo"', now share state
622 as much as possible, in the entire compilation unit. This cuts compiled
623 `.go' file sizes in half, generally, and speeds startup.
625 ** VLists: optimize `vlist-fold-right', and add `vhash-fold-right'
627 These procedures are now twice as fast as they were.
629 ** UTF-8 ports to bypass `iconv' entirely
631 This reduces memory usage in a very common case.
635 The compiler is now about 40% faster. (Note that this is only the case
636 once the compiler is itself compiled, so the build still takes as long
641 Some assertions that were mostly useful for sanity-checks on the
642 bytecode compiler are now off for both "regular" and "debug" engines.
643 This together with a fix to cache a TLS access and some other tweaks
644 improve the VM's performance by about 20%.
646 ** SRFI-1 list-set optimizations
648 lset-adjoin and lset-union now have fast paths for eq? sets.
650 ** `memq', `memv' optimizations
652 These procedures are now at least twice as fast than in 2.0.1.
656 ** Deprecate scm_whash API
658 `scm_whash_get_handle', `SCM_WHASHFOUNDP', `SCM_WHASHREF',
659 `SCM_WHASHSET', `scm_whash_create_handle', `scm_whash_lookup', and
660 `scm_whash_insert' are now deprecated. Use the normal hash table API
663 ** Deprecate scm_struct_table
665 `SCM_STRUCT_TABLE_NAME', `SCM_SET_STRUCT_TABLE_NAME',
666 `SCM_STRUCT_TABLE_CLASS', `SCM_SET_STRUCT_TABLE_CLASS',
667 `scm_struct_table', and `scm_struct_create_handle' are now deprecated.
668 These routines formed part of the internals of the map between structs
671 ** Deprecate scm_internal_dynamic_wind
673 The `scm_t_inner' type and `scm_internal_dynamic_wind' are deprecated,
674 as the `scm_dynwind' API is better, and this API encourages users to
675 stuff SCM values into pointers.
677 ** Deprecate scm_immutable_cell, scm_immutable_double_cell
679 These routines are deprecated, as the GC_STUBBORN API doesn't do
684 Andreas Rottman kindly transcribed the missing parts of the `(rnrs io
685 ports)' documentation from the R6RS documentation. Thanks Andreas!
689 ** Fix double-loading of script in -ds case
690 ** -x error message fix
691 ** iconveh-related cross-compilation fixes
692 ** Fix small integer return value packing on big endian machines.
693 ** Fix hash-set! in weak-value table from non-immediate to immediate
694 ** Fix call-with-input-file & relatives for multiple values
695 ** Fix `hash' for inf and nan
696 ** Fix libguile internal type errors caught by typing-strictness==2
697 ** Fix compile error in MinGW fstat socket detection
698 ** Fix generation of auto-compiled file names on MinGW
699 ** Fix multithreaded access to internal hash tables
700 ** Emit a 1-based line number in error messages
701 ** Fix define-module ordering
702 ** Fix several POSIX functions to use the locale encoding
703 ** Add type and range checks to the complex generalized vector accessors
704 ** Fix unaligned accesses for bytevectors of complex numbers
706 ** Fix erroneous VM stack overflow for canceled threads
709 Changes in 2.0.1 (since 2.0.0):
713 ** guile.m4 supports linking with rpath
715 The GUILE_FLAGS macro now sets GUILE_LIBS and GUILE_LTLIBS, which
716 include appropriate directives to the linker to include libguile-2.0.so
717 in the runtime library lookup path.
719 ** `begin' expands macros in its body before other expressions
721 This enables support for programs like the following:
726 (or (= x 0) (odd? (- x 1)))))
729 ((odd? x) (not (even? x)))))
732 ** REPL reader usability enhancements
734 The REPL now flushes input after a read error, which should prevent one
735 error from causing other errors. The REPL also now interprets comments
738 ** REPL output has configurable width
740 The REPL now defaults to output with the current terminal's width, in
741 columns. See "Debug Commands" in the manual for more information on
744 ** Better C access to the module system
746 Guile now has convenient C accessors to look up variables or values in
747 modules and their public interfaces. See `scm_c_public_ref' and friends
748 in "Accessing Modules from C" in the manual.
750 ** Added `scm_call_5', `scm_call_6'
752 See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
754 ** Added `scm_from_latin1_keyword', `scm_from_utf8_keyword'
756 See "Keyword Procedures" in the manual, for more. Note that
757 `scm_from_locale_keyword' should not be used when the name is a C string
760 ** R6RS unicode and string I/O work
762 Added efficient implementations of `get-string-n' and `get-string-n!'
763 for binary ports. Exported `current-input-port', `current-output-port'
764 and `current-error-port' from `(rnrs io ports)', and enhanced support
767 ** Added `pointer->scm', `scm->pointer' to `(system foreign)'
769 These procedure are useful if one needs to pass and receive SCM values
770 to and from foreign functions. See "Foreign Variables" in the manual,
773 ** Added `heap-allocated-since-gc' to `(gc-stats)'
775 Also fixed the long-standing bug in the REPL `,stat' command.
777 ** Add `on-error' REPL option
779 This option controls what happens when an error occurs at the REPL, and
780 defaults to `debug', indicating that Guile should enter the debugger.
781 Other values include `report', which will simply print a backtrace
782 without entering the debugger. See "System Commands" in the manual.
784 ** Enforce immutability of string literals
786 Attempting to mutate a string literal now causes a runtime error.
788 ** Fix pthread redirection
790 Guile 2.0.0 shipped with headers that, if configured with pthread
791 support, would re-define `pthread_create', `pthread_join', and other API
792 to redirect to the BDW-GC wrappers, `GC_pthread_create', etc. This was
793 unintended, and not necessary: because threads must enter Guile with
794 `scm_with_guile', Guile can handle thread registration itself, without
795 needing to make the GC aware of all threads. This oversight has been
798 ** `with-continuation-barrier' now unwinds on `quit'
800 A throw to `quit' in a continuation barrier will cause Guile to exit.
801 Before, it would do so before unwinding to the barrier, which would
802 prevent cleanup handlers from running. This has been fixed so that it
803 exits only after unwinding.
805 ** `string->pointer' and `pointer->string' have optional encoding arg
807 This allows users of the FFI to more easily deal in strings with
808 particular (non-locale) encodings, like "utf-8". See "Void Pointers and
809 Byte Access" in the manual, for more.
811 ** R6RS fixnum arithmetic optimizations
813 R6RS fixnum operations are are still slower than generic arithmetic,
816 ** New procedure: `define-inlinable'
818 See "Inlinable Procedures" in the manual, for more.
820 ** New procedure: `exact-integer-sqrt'
822 See "Integer Operations" in the manual, for more.
824 ** "Extended read syntax" for symbols parses better
826 In #{foo}# symbols, backslashes are now treated as escapes, as the
827 symbol-printing code intended. Additionally, "\x" within #{foo}# is now
828 interpreted as starting an R6RS hex escape. This is backward compatible
829 because the symbol printer would never produce a "\x" before. The
830 printer also works better too.
832 ** Added `--fresh-auto-compile' option
834 This allows a user to invalidate the auto-compilation cache. It's
835 usually not needed. See "Compilation" in the manual, for a discussion.
839 ** GOOPS documentation updates
843 Thanks to Mark Harig for improvements to guile.1.
845 ** SRFI-23 documented
847 The humble `error' SRFI now has an entry in the manual.
851 ** `(ice-9 binary-ports)': "R6RS I/O Ports", in the manual
852 ** `(ice-9 eval-string)': "Fly Evaluation", in the manual
853 ** `(ice-9 command-line)', not documented yet
857 ** Fixed `iconv_t' memory leak on close-port
858 ** Fixed some leaks with weak hash tables
859 ** Export `vhash-delq' and `vhash-delv' from `(ice-9 vlist)'
860 ** `after-gc-hook' works again
861 ** `define-record-type' now allowed in nested contexts
862 ** `exact-integer-sqrt' now handles large integers correctly
863 ** Fixed C extension examples in manual
864 ** `vhash-delete' honors HASH argument
865 ** Make `locale-digit-grouping' more robust
866 ** Default exception printer robustness fixes
867 ** Fix presence of non-I CPPFLAGS in `guile-2.0.pc'
868 ** `read' updates line/column numbers when reading SCSH block comments
869 ** Fix imports of multiple custom interfaces of same module
870 ** Fix encoding scanning for non-seekable ports
871 ** Fix `setter' when called with a non-setter generic
872 ** Fix f32 and f64 bytevectors to not accept rationals
873 ** Fix description of the R6RS `finite?' in manual
874 ** Quotient, remainder and modulo accept inexact integers again
875 ** Fix `continue' within `while' to take zero arguments
876 ** Fix alignment for structures in FFI
877 ** Fix port-filename of stdin, stdout, stderr to match the docs
878 ** Fix weak hash table-related bug in `define-wrapped-pointer-type'
879 ** Fix partial continuation application with pending procedure calls
880 ** scm_{to,from}_locale_string use current locale, not current ports
881 ** Fix thread cleanup, by using a pthread_key destructor
882 ** Fix `quit' at the REPL
883 ** Fix a failure to sync regs in vm bytevector ops
884 ** Fix (texinfo reflection) to handle nested structures like syntax patterns
885 ** Fix stexi->html double translation
886 ** Fix tree-il->scheme fix for <prompt>
887 ** Fix compilation of <prompt> in <fix> in single-value context
888 ** Fix race condition in ensure-writable-dir
889 ** Fix error message on ,disassemble "non-procedure"
890 ** Fix prompt and abort with the boot evaluator
891 ** Fix `procedure->pointer' for functions returning `void'
892 ** Fix error reporting in dynamic-pointer
893 ** Fix problems detecting coding: in block comments
894 ** Fix duplicate load-path and load-compiled-path in compilation environment
895 ** Add fallback read(2) suppport for .go files if mmap(2) unavailable
896 ** Fix c32vector-set!, c64vector-set!
897 ** Fix mistakenly deprecated read syntax for uniform complex vectors
898 ** Fix parsing of exact numbers with negative exponents
899 ** Ignore SIGPIPE in (system repl server)
900 ** Fix optional second arg to R6RS log function
901 ** Fix R6RS `assert' to return true value.
902 ** Fix fencepost error when seeking in bytevector input ports
903 ** Gracefully handle `setlocale' errors when starting the REPL
904 ** Improve support of the `--disable-posix' configure option
905 ** Make sure R6RS binary ports pass `binary-port?' regardless of the locale
906 ** Gracefully handle unterminated UTF-8 sequences instead of hitting an `assert'
910 Changes in 2.0.0 (changes since the 1.8.x series):
912 * New modules (see the manual for details)
914 ** `(srfi srfi-18)', more sophisticated multithreading support
915 ** `(srfi srfi-27)', sources of random bits
916 ** `(srfi srfi-38)', External Representation for Data With Shared Structure
917 ** `(srfi srfi-42)', eager comprehensions
918 ** `(srfi srfi-45)', primitives for expressing iterative lazy algorithms
919 ** `(srfi srfi-67)', compare procedures
920 ** `(ice-9 i18n)', internationalization support
921 ** `(ice-9 futures)', fine-grain parallelism
922 ** `(rnrs bytevectors)', the R6RS bytevector API
923 ** `(rnrs io ports)', a subset of the R6RS I/O port API
924 ** `(system xref)', a cross-referencing facility (FIXME undocumented)
925 ** `(ice-9 vlist)', lists with constant-time random access; hash lists
926 ** `(system foreign)', foreign function interface
927 ** `(sxml match)', a pattern matcher for SXML
928 ** `(srfi srfi-9 gnu)', extensions to the SRFI-9 record library
929 ** `(system vm coverage)', a line-by-line code coverage library
930 ** `(web uri)', URI data type, parser, and unparser
931 ** `(web http)', HTTP header parsers and unparsers
932 ** `(web request)', HTTP request data type, reader, and writer
933 ** `(web response)', HTTP response data type, reader, and writer
934 ** `(web server)', Generic HTTP server
935 ** `(ice-9 poll)', a poll wrapper
936 ** `(web server http)', HTTP-over-TCP web server implementation
938 ** Replaced `(ice-9 match)' with Alex Shinn's compatible, hygienic matcher.
940 Guile's copy of Andrew K. Wright's `match' library has been replaced by
941 a compatible hygienic implementation by Alex Shinn. It is now
942 documented, see "Pattern Matching" in the manual.
944 Compared to Andrew K. Wright's `match', the new `match' lacks
945 `match-define', `match:error-control', `match:set-error-control',
946 `match:error', `match:set-error', and all structure-related procedures.
948 ** Imported statprof, SSAX, and texinfo modules from Guile-Lib
950 The statprof statistical profiler, the SSAX XML toolkit, and the texinfo
951 toolkit from Guile-Lib have been imported into Guile proper. See
952 "Standard Library" in the manual for more details.
954 ** Integration of lalr-scm, a parser generator
956 Guile has included Dominique Boucher's fine `lalr-scm' parser generator
957 as `(system base lalr)'. See "LALR(1) Parsing" in the manual, for more
960 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
962 ** Guile now can compile Scheme to bytecode for a custom virtual machine.
964 Compiled code loads much faster than Scheme source code, and runs around
965 3 or 4 times as fast, generating much less garbage in the process.
967 ** Evaluating Scheme code does not use the C stack.
969 Besides when compiling Guile itself, Guile no longer uses a recursive C
970 function as an evaluator. This obviates the need to check the C stack
971 pointer for overflow. Continuations still capture the C stack, however.
973 ** New environment variables: GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH,
974 GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH
976 GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is for compiled files what GUILE_LOAD_PATH is
977 for source files. It is a different path, however, because compiled
978 files are architecture-specific. GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is like
981 ** New read-eval-print loop (REPL) implementation
983 Running Guile with no arguments drops the user into the new REPL. See
984 "Using Guile Interactively" in the manual, for more information.
986 ** Remove old Emacs interface
988 Guile had an unused `--emacs' command line argument that was supposed to
989 help when running Guile inside Emacs. This option has been removed, and
990 the helper functions `named-module-use!' and `load-emacs-interface' have
993 ** Add `(system repl server)' module and `--listen' command-line argument
995 The `(system repl server)' module exposes procedures to listen on
996 sockets for connections, and serve REPLs to those clients. The --listen
997 command-line argument allows any Guile program to thus be remotely
1000 See "Invoking Guile" for more information on `--listen'.
1002 ** Command line additions
1004 The guile binary now supports a new switch "-x", which can be used to
1005 extend the list of filename extensions tried when loading files
1008 ** New reader options: `square-brackets', `r6rs-hex-escapes',
1009 `hungry-eol-escapes'
1011 The reader supports a new option (changeable via `read-options'),
1012 `square-brackets', which instructs it to interpret square brackets as
1013 parentheses. This option is on by default.
1015 When the new `r6rs-hex-escapes' reader option is enabled, the reader
1016 will recognize string escape sequences as defined in R6RS. R6RS string
1017 escape sequences are incompatible with Guile's existing escapes, though,
1018 so this option is off by default.
1020 Additionally, Guile follows the R6RS newline escaping rules when the
1021 `hungry-eol-escapes' option is enabled.
1023 See "String Syntax" in the manual, for more information.
1025 ** Function profiling and tracing at the REPL
1027 The `,profile FORM' REPL meta-command can now be used to statistically
1028 profile execution of a form, to see which functions are taking the most
1029 time. See `,help profile' for more information.
1031 Similarly, `,trace FORM' traces all function applications that occur
1032 during the execution of `FORM'. See `,help trace' for more information.
1034 ** Recursive debugging REPL on error
1036 When Guile sees an error at the REPL, instead of saving the stack, Guile
1037 will directly enter a recursive REPL in the dynamic context of the
1038 error. See "Error Handling" in the manual, for more information.
1040 A recursive REPL is the same as any other REPL, except that it
1041 has been augmented with debugging information, so that one can inspect
1042 the context of the error. The debugger has been integrated with the REPL
1043 via a set of debugging meta-commands.
1045 For example, one may access a backtrace with `,backtrace' (or
1046 `,bt'). See "Interactive Debugging" in the manual, for more
1049 ** New `guile-tools' commands: `compile', `disassemble'
1051 Pass the `--help' command-line option to these commands for more
1054 ** Guile now adds its install prefix to the LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH
1056 Users may now install Guile to nonstandard prefixes and just run
1057 `/path/to/bin/guile', instead of also having to set LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH to
1058 include `/path/to/lib'.
1060 ** Guile's Emacs integration is now more keyboard-friendly
1062 Backtraces may now be disclosed with the keyboard in addition to the
1065 ** Load path change: search in version-specific paths before site paths
1067 When looking for a module, Guile now searches first in Guile's
1068 version-specific path (the library path), *then* in the site dir. This
1069 allows Guile's copy of SSAX to override any Guile-Lib copy the user has
1070 installed. Also it should cut the number of `stat' system calls by half,
1073 ** Value history in the REPL on by default
1075 By default, the REPL will save computed values in variables like `$1',
1076 `$2', and the like. There are programmatic and interactive interfaces to
1077 control this. See "Value History" in the manual, for more information.
1079 ** Readline tab completion for arguments
1081 When readline is enabled, tab completion works for arguments too, not
1082 just for the operator position.
1084 ** Expression-oriented readline history
1086 Guile's readline history now tries to operate on expressions instead of
1087 input lines. Let us know what you think!
1089 ** Interactive Guile follows GNU conventions
1091 As recommended by the GPL, Guile now shows a brief copyright and
1092 warranty disclaimer on startup, along with pointers to more information.
1094 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1096 ** Support for R6RS libraries
1098 The `library' and `import' forms from the latest Scheme report have been
1099 added to Guile, in such a way that R6RS libraries share a namespace with
1100 Guile modules. R6RS modules may import Guile modules, and are available
1101 for Guile modules to import via use-modules and all the rest. See "R6RS
1102 Libraries" in the manual for more information.
1104 ** Implementations of R6RS libraries
1106 Guile now has implementations for all of the libraries defined in the
1107 R6RS. Thanks to Julian Graham for this excellent hack. See "R6RS
1108 Standard Libraries" in the manual for a full list of libraries.
1110 ** Partial R6RS compatibility
1112 Guile now has enough support for R6RS to run a reasonably large subset
1115 Guile is not fully R6RS compatible. Many incompatibilities are simply
1116 bugs, though some parts of Guile will remain R6RS-incompatible for the
1117 foreseeable future. See "R6RS Incompatibilities" in the manual, for more
1120 Please contact bug-guile@gnu.org if you have found an issue not
1121 mentioned in that compatibility list.
1123 ** New implementation of `primitive-eval'
1125 Guile's `primitive-eval' is now implemented in Scheme. Actually there is
1126 still a C evaluator, used when building a fresh Guile to interpret the
1127 compiler, so we can compile eval.scm. Thereafter all calls to
1128 primitive-eval are implemented by VM-compiled code.
1130 This allows all of Guile's procedures, be they interpreted or compiled,
1131 to execute on the same stack, unifying multiple-value return semantics,
1132 providing for proper tail recursion between interpreted and compiled
1133 code, and simplifying debugging.
1135 As part of this change, the evaluator no longer mutates the internal
1136 representation of the code being evaluated in a thread-unsafe manner.
1138 There are two negative aspects of this change, however. First, Guile
1139 takes a lot longer to compile now. Also, there is less debugging
1140 information available for debugging interpreted code. We hope to improve
1141 both of these situations.
1143 There are many changes to the internal C evalator interface, but all
1144 public interfaces should be the same. See the ChangeLog for details. If
1145 we have inadvertantly changed an interface that you were using, please
1146 contact bug-guile@gnu.org.
1148 ** Procedure removed: `the-environment'
1150 This procedure was part of the interpreter's execution model, and does
1151 not apply to the compiler.
1153 ** No more `local-eval'
1155 `local-eval' used to exist so that one could evaluate code in the
1156 lexical context of a function. Since there is no way to get the lexical
1157 environment any more, as that concept has no meaning for the compiler,
1158 and a different meaning for the interpreter, we have removed the
1161 If you think you need `local-eval', you should probably implement your
1162 own metacircular evaluator. It will probably be as fast as Guile's
1165 ** Scheme source files will now be compiled automatically.
1167 If a compiled .go file corresponding to a .scm file is not found or is
1168 not fresh, the .scm file will be compiled on the fly, and the resulting
1169 .go file stored away. An advisory note will be printed on the console.
1171 Note that this mechanism depends on the timestamp of the .go file being
1172 newer than that of the .scm file; if the .scm or .go files are moved
1173 after installation, care should be taken to preserve their original
1176 Auto-compiled files will be stored in the $XDG_CACHE_HOME/guile/ccache
1177 directory, where $XDG_CACHE_HOME defaults to ~/.cache. This directory
1178 will be created if needed.
1180 To inhibit automatic compilation, set the GUILE_AUTO_COMPILE environment
1181 variable to 0, or pass --no-auto-compile on the Guile command line.
1183 ** New POSIX procedures: `getrlimit' and `setrlimit'
1185 Note however that the interface of these functions is likely to change
1186 in the next prerelease.
1188 ** New POSIX procedure: `getsid'
1190 Scheme binding for the `getsid' C library call.
1192 ** New POSIX procedure: `getaddrinfo'
1194 Scheme binding for the `getaddrinfo' C library function.
1196 ** Multicast socket options
1198 Support was added for the IP_MULTICAST_TTL and IP_MULTICAST_IF socket
1199 options. See "Network Sockets and Communication" in the manual, for
1202 ** `recv!', `recvfrom!', `send', `sendto' now deal in bytevectors
1204 These socket procedures now take bytevectors as arguments, instead of
1205 strings. There is some deprecated string support, however.
1207 ** New GNU procedures: `setaffinity' and `getaffinity'.
1209 See "Processes" in the manual, for more information.
1211 ** New procedures: `compose', `negate', and `const'
1213 See "Higher-Order Functions" in the manual, for more information.
1215 ** New procedure in `(oops goops)': `method-formals'
1217 ** New procedures in (ice-9 session): `add-value-help-handler!',
1218 `remove-value-help-handler!', `add-name-help-handler!'
1219 `remove-name-help-handler!', `procedure-arguments'
1221 The value and name help handlers provide some minimal extensibility to
1222 the help interface. Guile-lib's `(texinfo reflection)' uses them, for
1223 example, to make stexinfo help documentation available. See those
1224 procedures' docstrings for more information.
1226 `procedure-arguments' describes the arguments that a procedure can take,
1227 combining arity and formals. For example:
1229 (procedure-arguments resolve-interface)
1230 => ((required . (name)) (rest . args))
1232 Additionally, `module-commentary' is now publically exported from
1235 ** Removed: `procedure->memoizing-macro', `procedure->syntax'
1237 These procedures created primitive fexprs for the old evaluator, and are
1238 no longer supported. If you feel that you need these functions, you
1239 probably need to write your own metacircular evaluator (which will
1240 probably be as fast as Guile's, anyway).
1242 ** New language: ECMAScript
1244 Guile now ships with one other high-level language supported,
1245 ECMAScript. The goal is to support all of version 3.1 of the standard,
1246 but not all of the libraries are there yet. This support is not yet
1247 documented; ask on the mailing list if you are interested.
1249 ** New language: Brainfuck
1251 Brainfuck is a toy language that closely models Turing machines. Guile's
1252 brainfuck compiler is meant to be an example of implementing other
1253 languages. See the manual for details, or
1254 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck for more information about the
1255 Brainfuck language itself.
1257 ** New language: Elisp
1259 Guile now has an experimental Emacs Lisp compiler and runtime. You can
1260 now switch to Elisp at the repl: `,language elisp'. All kudos to Daniel
1261 Kraft and Brian Templeton, and all bugs to bug-guile@gnu.org.
1263 ** Better documentation infrastructure for macros
1265 It is now possible to introspect on the type of a macro, e.g.
1266 syntax-rules, identifier-syntax, etc, and extract information about that
1267 macro, such as the syntax-rules patterns or the defmacro arguments.
1268 `(texinfo reflection)' takes advantage of this to give better macro
1271 ** Support for arbitrary procedure metadata
1273 Building on its support for docstrings, Guile now supports multiple
1274 docstrings, adding them to the tail of a compiled procedure's
1275 properties. For example:
1281 (procedure-properties foo)
1282 => ((name . foo) (documentation . "one") (documentation . "two"))
1284 Also, vectors of pairs are now treated as additional metadata entries:
1287 #((quz . #f) (docstring . "xyzzy"))
1289 (procedure-properties bar)
1290 => ((name . bar) (quz . #f) (docstring . "xyzzy"))
1292 This allows arbitrary literals to be embedded as metadata in a compiled
1295 ** The psyntax expander now knows how to interpret the @ and @@ special
1298 ** The psyntax expander is now hygienic with respect to modules.
1300 Free variables in a macro are scoped in the module that the macro was
1301 defined in, not in the module the macro is used in. For example, code
1302 like this works now:
1304 (define-module (foo) #:export (bar))
1305 (define (helper x) ...)
1307 (syntax-rules () ((_ x) (helper x))))
1309 (define-module (baz) #:use-module (foo))
1312 It used to be you had to export `helper' from `(foo)' as well.
1313 Thankfully, this has been fixed.
1315 ** Support for version information in Guile's `module' form
1317 Guile modules now have a `#:version' field. See "R6RS Version
1318 References", "General Information about Modules", "Using Guile Modules",
1319 and "Creating Guile Modules" in the manual for more information.
1321 ** Support for renaming bindings on module export
1323 Wherever Guile accepts a symbol as an argument to specify a binding to
1324 export, it now also accepts a pair of symbols, indicating that a binding
1325 should be renamed on export. See "Creating Guile Modules" in the manual
1326 for more information.
1328 ** New procedure: `module-export-all!'
1330 This procedure exports all current and future bindings from a module.
1331 Use as `(module-export-all! (current-module))'.
1333 ** New procedure `reload-module', and `,reload' REPL command
1335 See "Module System Reflection" and "Module Commands" in the manual, for
1338 ** `eval-case' has been deprecated, and replaced by `eval-when'.
1340 The semantics of `eval-when' are easier to understand. See "Eval When"
1341 in the manual, for more information.
1343 ** Guile is now more strict about prohibiting definitions in expression
1346 Although previous versions of Guile accepted it, the following
1347 expression is not valid, in R5RS or R6RS:
1349 (if test (define foo 'bar) (define foo 'baz))
1351 In this specific case, it would be better to do:
1353 (define foo (if test 'bar 'baz))
1355 It is possible to circumvent this restriction with e.g.
1356 `(module-define! (current-module) 'foo 'baz)'. Contact the list if you
1359 ** Support for `letrec*'
1361 Guile now supports `letrec*', a recursive lexical binding operator in
1362 which the identifiers are bound in order. See "Local Bindings" in the
1363 manual, for more details.
1365 ** Internal definitions now expand to `letrec*'
1367 Following the R6RS, internal definitions now expand to letrec* instead
1368 of letrec. The following program is invalid for R5RS, but valid for
1373 (define baz (+ bar 20))
1376 ;; R5RS and Guile <= 1.8:
1377 (foo) => Unbound variable: bar
1378 ;; R6RS and Guile >= 2.0:
1381 This change should not affect correct R5RS programs, or programs written
1382 in earlier Guile dialects.
1384 ** Macro expansion produces structures instead of s-expressions
1386 In the olden days, macroexpanding an s-expression would yield another
1387 s-expression. Though the lexical variables were renamed, expansions of
1388 core forms like `if' and `begin' were still non-hygienic, as they relied
1389 on the toplevel definitions of `if' et al being the conventional ones.
1391 The solution is to expand to structures instead of s-expressions. There
1392 is an `if' structure, a `begin' structure, a `toplevel-ref' structure,
1393 etc. The expander already did this for compilation, producing Tree-IL
1394 directly; it has been changed now to do so when expanding for the
1397 ** Defmacros must now produce valid Scheme expressions.
1399 It used to be that defmacros could unquote in Scheme values, as a way of
1400 supporting partial evaluation, and avoiding some hygiene issues. For
1403 (define (helper x) ...)
1404 (define-macro (foo bar)
1407 Assuming this macro is in the `(baz)' module, the direct translation of
1410 (define (helper x) ...)
1411 (define-macro (foo bar)
1412 `((@@ (baz) helper) ,bar))
1414 Of course, one could just use a hygienic macro instead:
1418 ((_ bar) (helper bar))))
1420 ** Guile's psyntax now supports docstrings and internal definitions.
1422 The following Scheme is not strictly legal:
1429 However its intent is fairly clear. Guile interprets "bar" to be the
1430 docstring of `foo', and the definition of `baz' is still in definition
1433 ** Support for settable identifier syntax
1435 Following the R6RS, "variable transformers" are settable
1436 identifier-syntax. See "Identifier macros" in the manual, for more
1439 ** syntax-case treats `_' as a placeholder
1441 Following R6RS, a `_' in a syntax-rules or syntax-case pattern matches
1442 anything, and binds no pattern variables. Unlike the R6RS, Guile also
1443 permits `_' to be in the literals list for a pattern.
1445 ** Macros need to be defined before their first use.
1447 It used to be that with lazy memoization, this might work:
1451 (define-macro (ref x) x)
1454 But now, the body of `foo' is interpreted to mean a call to the toplevel
1455 `ref' function, instead of a macro expansion. The solution is to define
1456 macros before code that uses them.
1458 ** Functions needed by macros at expand-time need to be present at
1461 For example, this code will work at the REPL:
1463 (define (double-helper x) (* x x))
1464 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
1465 (double-literal 2) => 4
1467 But it will not work when a file is compiled, because the definition of
1468 `double-helper' is not present at expand-time. The solution is to wrap
1469 the definition of `double-helper' in `eval-when':
1471 (eval-when (load compile eval)
1472 (define (double-helper x) (* x x)))
1473 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
1474 (double-literal 2) => 4
1476 See the documentation for eval-when for more information.
1478 ** `macroexpand' produces structures, not S-expressions.
1480 Given the need to maintain referential transparency, both lexically and
1481 modular, the result of expanding Scheme expressions is no longer itself
1482 an s-expression. If you want a human-readable approximation of the
1483 result of `macroexpand', call `tree-il->scheme' from `(language
1486 ** Removed function: `macroexpand-1'
1488 It is unclear how to implement `macroexpand-1' with syntax-case, though
1489 PLT Scheme does prove that it is possible.
1491 ** New reader macros: #' #` #, #,@
1493 These macros translate, respectively, to `syntax', `quasisyntax',
1494 `unsyntax', and `unsyntax-splicing'. See the R6RS for more information.
1495 These reader macros may be overridden by `read-hash-extend'.
1497 ** Incompatible change to #'
1499 Guile did have a #' hash-extension, by default, which just returned the
1500 subsequent datum: #'foo => foo. In the unlikely event that anyone
1501 actually used this, this behavior may be reinstated via the
1502 `read-hash-extend' mechanism.
1504 ** `unquote' and `unquote-splicing' accept multiple expressions
1506 As per the R6RS, these syntax operators can now accept any number of
1507 expressions to unquote.
1509 ** Scheme expresssions may be commented out with #;
1511 #; comments out an entire expression. See SRFI-62 or the R6RS for more
1514 ** Prompts: Delimited, composable continuations
1516 Guile now has prompts as part of its primitive language. See "Prompts"
1517 in the manual, for more information.
1519 Expressions entered in at the REPL, or from the command line, are
1520 surrounded by a prompt with the default prompt tag.
1522 ** `make-stack' with a tail-called procedural narrowing argument no longer
1523 works (with compiled procedures)
1525 It used to be the case that a captured stack could be narrowed to select
1526 calls only up to or from a certain procedure, even if that procedure
1527 already tail-called another procedure. This was because the debug
1528 information from the original procedure was kept on the stack.
1530 Now with the new compiler, the stack only contains active frames from
1531 the current continuation. A narrow to a procedure that is not in the
1532 stack will result in an empty stack. To fix this, narrow to a procedure
1533 that is active in the current continuation, or narrow to a specific
1534 number of stack frames.
1536 ** Backtraces through compiled procedures only show procedures that are
1537 active in the current continuation
1539 Similarly to the previous issue, backtraces in compiled code may be
1540 different from backtraces in interpreted code. There are no semantic
1541 differences, however. Please mail bug-guile@gnu.org if you see any
1542 deficiencies with Guile's backtraces.
1544 ** `positions' reader option enabled by default
1546 This change allows primitive-load without --auto-compile to also
1547 propagate source information through the expander, for better errors and
1548 to let macros know their source locations. The compiler was already
1549 turning it on anyway.
1551 ** New macro: `current-source-location'
1553 The macro returns the current source location (to be documented).
1555 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case macros now propagate source information
1556 through to the expanded code
1558 This should result in better backtraces.
1560 ** The currying behavior of `define' has been removed.
1562 Before, `(define ((f a) b) (* a b))' would translate to
1564 (define f (lambda (a) (lambda (b) (* a b))))
1566 Now a syntax error is signaled, as this syntax is not supported by
1567 default. Use the `(ice-9 curried-definitions)' module to get back the
1570 ** New procedure, `define!'
1572 `define!' is a procedure that takes two arguments, a symbol and a value,
1573 and binds the value to the symbol in the current module. It's useful to
1574 programmatically make definitions in the current module, and is slightly
1575 less verbose than `module-define!'.
1577 ** All modules have names now
1579 Before, you could have anonymous modules: modules without names. Now,
1580 because of hygiene and macros, all modules have names. If a module was
1581 created without a name, the first time `module-name' is called on it, a
1582 fresh name will be lazily generated for it.
1584 ** The module namespace is now separate from the value namespace
1586 It was a little-known implementation detail of Guile's module system
1587 that it was built on a single hierarchical namespace of values -- that
1588 if there was a module named `(foo bar)', then in the module named
1589 `(foo)' there was a binding from `bar' to the `(foo bar)' module.
1591 This was a neat trick, but presented a number of problems. One problem
1592 was that the bindings in a module were not apparent from the module
1593 itself; perhaps the `(foo)' module had a private binding for `bar', and
1594 then an external contributor defined `(foo bar)'. In the end there can
1595 be only one binding, so one of the two will see the wrong thing, and
1596 produce an obtuse error of unclear provenance.
1598 Also, the public interface of a module was also bound in the value
1599 namespace, as `%module-public-interface'. This was a hack from the early
1600 days of Guile's modules.
1602 Both of these warts have been fixed by the addition of fields in the
1603 `module' data type. Access to modules and their interfaces from the
1604 value namespace has been deprecated, and all accessors use the new
1605 record accessors appropriately.
1607 When Guile is built with support for deprecated code, as is the default,
1608 the value namespace is still searched for modules and public interfaces,
1609 and a deprecation warning is raised as appropriate.
1611 Finally, to support lazy loading of modules as one used to be able to do
1612 with module binder procedures, Guile now has submodule binders, called
1613 if a given submodule is not found. See boot-9.scm for more information.
1615 ** New procedures: module-ref-submodule, module-define-submodule,
1616 nested-ref-module, nested-define-module!, local-ref-module,
1619 These new accessors are like their bare variants, but operate on
1620 namespaces instead of values.
1622 ** The (app modules) module tree is officially deprecated
1624 It used to be that one could access a module named `(foo bar)' via
1625 `(nested-ref the-root-module '(app modules foo bar))'. The `(app
1626 modules)' bit was a never-used and never-documented abstraction, and has
1627 been deprecated. See the following mail for a full discussion:
1629 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2010-04/msg00168.html
1631 The `%app' binding is also deprecated.
1633 ** `module-filename' field and accessor
1635 Modules now record the file in which they are defined. This field may be
1636 accessed with the new `module-filename' procedure.
1638 ** Modules load within a known environment
1640 It takes a few procedure calls to define a module, and those procedure
1641 calls need to be in scope. Now we ensure that the current module when
1642 loading a module is one that has the needed bindings, instead of relying
1645 ** `load' is a macro (!) that resolves paths relative to source file dir
1647 The familiar Schem `load' procedure is now a macro that captures the
1648 name of the source file being expanded, and dispatches to the new
1649 `load-in-vicinity'. Referencing `load' by bare name returns a closure
1650 that embeds the current source file name.
1652 This fix allows `load' of relative paths to be resolved with respect to
1653 the location of the file that calls `load'.
1655 ** Many syntax errors have different texts now
1657 Syntax errors still throw to the `syntax-error' key, but the arguments
1658 are often different now. Perhaps in the future, Guile will switch to
1659 using standard SRFI-35 conditions.
1661 ** Returning multiple values to compiled code will silently truncate the
1662 values to the expected number
1664 For example, the interpreter would raise an error evaluating the form,
1665 `(+ (values 1 2) (values 3 4))', because it would see the operands as
1666 being two compound "values" objects, to which `+' does not apply.
1668 The compiler, on the other hand, receives multiple values on the stack,
1669 not as a compound object. Given that it must check the number of values
1670 anyway, if too many values are provided for a continuation, it chooses
1671 to truncate those values, effectively evaluating `(+ 1 3)' instead.
1673 The idea is that the semantics that the compiler implements is more
1674 intuitive, and the use of the interpreter will fade out with time.
1675 This behavior is allowed both by the R5RS and the R6RS.
1677 ** Multiple values in compiled code are not represented by compound
1680 This change may manifest itself in the following situation:
1682 (let ((val (foo))) (do-something) val)
1684 In the interpreter, if `foo' returns multiple values, multiple values
1685 are produced from the `let' expression. In the compiler, those values
1686 are truncated to the first value, and that first value is returned. In
1687 the compiler, if `foo' returns no values, an error will be raised, while
1688 the interpreter would proceed.
1690 Both of these behaviors are allowed by R5RS and R6RS. The compiler's
1691 behavior is more correct, however. If you wish to preserve a potentially
1692 multiply-valued return, you will need to set up a multiple-value
1693 continuation, using `call-with-values'.
1695 ** Defmacros are now implemented in terms of syntax-case.
1697 The practical ramification of this is that the `defmacro?' predicate has
1698 been removed, along with `defmacro-transformer', `macro-table',
1699 `xformer-table', `assert-defmacro?!', `set-defmacro-transformer!' and
1700 `defmacro:transformer'. This is because defmacros are simply macros. If
1701 any of these procedures provided useful facilities to you, we encourage
1702 you to contact the Guile developers.
1704 ** Hygienic macros documented as the primary syntactic extension mechanism.
1706 The macro documentation was finally fleshed out with some documentation
1707 on `syntax-rules' and `syntax-case' macros, and other parts of the macro
1708 expansion process. See "Macros" in the manual, for details.
1710 ** psyntax is now the default expander
1712 Scheme code is now expanded by default by the psyntax hygienic macro
1713 expander. Expansion is performed completely before compilation or
1716 Notably, syntax errors will be signalled before interpretation begins.
1717 In the past, many syntax errors were only detected at runtime if the
1718 code in question was memoized.
1720 As part of its expansion, psyntax renames all lexically-bound
1721 identifiers. Original identifier names are preserved and given to the
1722 compiler, but the interpreter will see the renamed variables, e.g.,
1723 `x432' instead of `x'.
1725 Note that the psyntax that Guile uses is a fork, as Guile already had
1726 modules before incompatible modules were added to psyntax -- about 10
1727 years ago! Thus there are surely a number of bugs that have been fixed
1728 in psyntax since then. If you find one, please notify bug-guile@gnu.org.
1730 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case are available by default.
1732 There is no longer any need to import the `(ice-9 syncase)' module
1733 (which is now deprecated). The expander may be invoked directly via
1734 `macroexpand', though it is normally searched for via the current module
1737 Also, the helper routines for syntax-case are available in the default
1738 environment as well: `syntax->datum', `datum->syntax',
1739 `bound-identifier=?', `free-identifier=?', `generate-temporaries',
1740 `identifier?', and `syntax-violation'. See the R6RS for documentation.
1742 ** Tail patterns in syntax-case
1744 Guile has pulled in some more recent changes from the psyntax portable
1745 syntax expander, to implement support for "tail patterns". Such patterns
1746 are supported by syntax-rules and syntax-case. This allows a syntax-case
1747 match clause to have ellipses, then a pattern at the end. For example:
1750 (syntax-rules (else)
1751 ((_ val match-clause ... (else e e* ...))
1754 Note how there is MATCH-CLAUSE, which is ellipsized, then there is a
1755 tail pattern for the else clause. Thanks to Andreas Rottmann for the
1756 patch, and Kent Dybvig for the code.
1758 ** Lexical bindings introduced by hygienic macros may not be referenced
1759 by nonhygienic macros.
1761 If a lexical binding is introduced by a hygienic macro, it may not be
1762 referenced by a nonhygienic macro. For example, this works:
1765 (define-macro (bind-x val body)
1766 `(let ((x ,val)) ,body))
1767 (define-macro (ref x)
1769 (bind-x 10 (ref x)))
1774 (define-syntax bind-x
1776 ((_ val body) (let ((x val)) body))))
1777 (define-macro (ref x)
1779 (bind-x 10 (ref x)))
1781 It is not normal to run into this situation with existing code. However,
1782 if you have defmacros that expand to hygienic macros, it is possible to
1783 run into situations like this. For example, if you have a defmacro that
1784 generates a `while' expression, the `break' bound by the `while' may not
1785 be visible within other parts of your defmacro. The solution is to port
1786 from defmacros to syntax-rules or syntax-case.
1788 ** Macros may no longer be referenced as first-class values.
1790 In the past, you could evaluate e.g. `if', and get its macro value. Now,
1791 expanding this form raises a syntax error.
1793 Macros still /exist/ as first-class values, but they must be
1794 /referenced/ via the module system, e.g. `(module-ref (current-module)
1797 ** Macros may now have docstrings.
1799 `object-documentation' from `(ice-9 documentation)' may be used to
1800 retrieve the docstring, once you have a macro value -- but see the above
1801 note about first-class macros. Docstrings are associated with the syntax
1802 transformer procedures.
1804 ** `case-lambda' is now available in the default environment.
1806 The binding in the default environment is equivalent to the one from the
1807 `(srfi srfi-16)' module. Use the srfi-16 module explicitly if you wish
1808 to maintain compatibility with Guile 1.8 and earlier.
1810 ** Procedures may now have more than one arity.
1812 This can be the case, for example, in case-lambda procedures. The
1813 arities of compiled procedures may be accessed via procedures from the
1814 `(system vm program)' module; see "Compiled Procedures", "Optional
1815 Arguments", and "Case-lambda" in the manual.
1817 ** Deprecate arity access via (procedure-properties proc 'arity)
1819 Instead of accessing a procedure's arity as a property, use the new
1820 `procedure-minimum-arity' function, which gives the most permissive
1821 arity that the function has, in the same format as the old arity
1824 ** `lambda*' and `define*' are now available in the default environment
1826 As with `case-lambda', `(ice-9 optargs)' continues to be supported, for
1827 compatibility purposes. No semantic change has been made (we hope).
1828 Optional and keyword arguments now dispatch via special VM operations,
1829 without the need to cons rest arguments, making them very fast.
1831 ** New syntax: define-once
1833 `define-once' is like Lisp's `defvar': it creates a toplevel binding,
1834 but only if one does not exist already.
1836 ** New function, `truncated-print', with `format' support
1838 `(ice-9 pretty-print)' now exports `truncated-print', a printer that
1839 will ensure that the output stays within a certain width, truncating the
1840 output in what is hopefully an intelligent manner. See the manual for
1843 There is a new `format' specifier, `~@y', for doing a truncated
1844 print (as opposed to `~y', which does a pretty-print). See the `format'
1845 documentation for more details.
1847 ** Better pretty-printing
1849 Indentation recognizes more special forms, like `syntax-case', and read
1850 macros like `quote' are printed better.
1852 ** Passing a number as the destination of `format' is deprecated
1854 The `format' procedure in `(ice-9 format)' now emits a deprecation
1855 warning if a number is passed as its first argument.
1857 Also, it used to be that you could omit passing a port to `format', in
1858 some cases. This still works, but has been formally deprecated.
1860 ** SRFI-4 vectors reimplemented in terms of R6RS bytevectors
1862 Guile now implements SRFI-4 vectors using bytevectors. Often when you
1863 have a numeric vector, you end up wanting to write its bytes somewhere,
1864 or have access to the underlying bytes, or read in bytes from somewhere
1865 else. Bytevectors are very good at this sort of thing. But the SRFI-4
1866 APIs are nicer to use when doing number-crunching, because they are
1867 addressed by element and not by byte.
1869 So as a compromise, Guile allows all bytevector functions to operate on
1870 numeric vectors. They address the underlying bytes in the native
1871 endianness, as one would expect.
1873 Following the same reasoning, that it's just bytes underneath, Guile
1874 also allows uniform vectors of a given type to be accessed as if they
1875 were of any type. One can fill a u32vector, and access its elements with
1876 u8vector-ref. One can use f64vector-ref on bytevectors. It's all the
1879 In this way, uniform numeric vectors may be written to and read from
1880 input/output ports using the procedures that operate on bytevectors.
1882 Calls to SRFI-4 accessors (ref and set functions) from Scheme are now
1883 inlined to the VM instructions for bytevector access.
1885 See "SRFI-4" in the manual, for more information.
1887 ** Nonstandard SRFI-4 procedures now available from `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)'
1889 Guile's `(srfi srfi-4)' now only exports those srfi-4 procedures that
1890 are part of the standard. Complex uniform vectors and the
1891 `any->FOOvector' family are now available only from `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)'.
1893 Guile's default environment imports `(srfi srfi-4)', and probably should
1894 import `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)' as well.
1896 See "SRFI-4 Extensions" in the manual, for more information.
1898 ** New syntax: include-from-path.
1900 `include-from-path' is like `include', except it looks for its file in
1901 the load path. It can be used to compile other files into a file.
1903 ** New syntax: quasisyntax.
1905 `quasisyntax' is to `syntax' as `quasiquote' is to `quote'. See the R6RS
1906 documentation for more information. Thanks to Andre van Tonder for the
1909 ** `*unspecified*' is identifier syntax
1911 `*unspecified*' is no longer a variable, so it is optimized properly by
1912 the compiler, and is not `set!'-able.
1914 ** Changes and bugfixes in numerics code
1916 *** Added six new sets of fast quotient and remainder operators
1918 Added six new sets of fast quotient and remainder operator pairs with
1919 different semantics than the R5RS operators. They support not only
1920 integers, but all reals, including exact rationals and inexact
1921 floating point numbers.
1923 These procedures accept two real numbers N and D, where the divisor D
1924 must be non-zero. Each set of operators computes an integer quotient
1925 Q and a real remainder R such that N = Q*D + R and |R| < |D|. They
1926 differ only in how N/D is rounded to produce Q.
1928 `euclidean-quotient' returns the integer Q and `euclidean-remainder'
1929 returns the real R such that N = Q*D + R and 0 <= R < |D|. `euclidean/'
1930 returns both Q and R, and is more efficient than computing each
1931 separately. Note that when D > 0, `euclidean-quotient' returns
1932 floor(N/D), and when D < 0 it returns ceiling(N/D).
1934 `centered-quotient', `centered-remainder', and `centered/' are similar
1935 except that the range of remainders is -abs(D/2) <= R < abs(D/2), and
1936 `centered-quotient' rounds N/D to the nearest integer. Note that these
1937 operators are equivalent to the R6RS integer division operators `div',
1938 `mod', `div-and-mod', `div0', `mod0', and `div0-and-mod0'.
1940 `floor-quotient' and `floor-remainder' compute Q and R, respectively,
1941 where Q has been rounded toward negative infinity. `floor/' returns
1942 both Q and R, and is more efficient than computing each separately.
1943 Note that when applied to integers, `floor-remainder' is equivalent to
1944 the R5RS integer-only `modulo' operator. `ceiling-quotient',
1945 `ceiling-remainder', and `ceiling/' are similar except that Q is
1946 rounded toward positive infinity.
1948 For `truncate-quotient', `truncate-remainder', and `truncate/', Q is
1949 rounded toward zero. Note that when applied to integers,
1950 `truncate-quotient' and `truncate-remainder' are equivalent to the
1951 R5RS integer-only operators `quotient' and `remainder'.
1953 For `round-quotient', `round-remainder', and `round/', Q is rounded to
1954 the nearest integer, with ties going to the nearest even integer.
1956 *** Complex number changes
1958 Guile is now able to represent non-real complex numbers whose
1959 imaginary part is an _inexact_ zero (0.0 or -0.0), per R6RS.
1960 Previously, such numbers were immediately changed into inexact reals.
1962 (real? 0.0+0.0i) now returns #f, per R6RS, although (zero? 0.0+0.0i)
1963 still returns #t, per R6RS. (= 0 0.0+0.0i) and (= 0.0 0.0+0.0i) are
1964 #t, but the same comparisons using `eqv?' or `equal?' are #f.
1966 Like other non-real numbers, these complex numbers with inexact zero
1967 imaginary part will raise exceptions is passed to procedures requiring
1968 reals, such as `<', `>', `<=', `>=', `min', `max', `positive?',
1969 `negative?', `inf?', `nan?', `finite?', etc.
1971 **** `make-rectangular' changes
1973 scm_make_rectangular `make-rectangular' now returns a real number only
1974 if the imaginary part is an _exact_ 0. Previously, it would return a
1975 real number if the imaginary part was an inexact zero.
1977 scm_c_make_rectangular now always returns a non-real complex number,
1978 even if the imaginary part is zero. Previously, it would return a
1979 real number if the imaginary part was zero.
1981 **** `make-polar' changes
1983 scm_make_polar `make-polar' now returns a real number only if the
1984 angle or magnitude is an _exact_ 0. If the magnitude is an exact 0,
1985 it now returns an exact 0. Previously, it would return a real
1986 number if the imaginary part was an inexact zero.
1988 scm_c_make_polar now always returns a non-real complex number, even if
1989 the imaginary part is 0.0. Previously, it would return a real number
1990 if the imaginary part was 0.0.
1992 **** `imag-part' changes
1994 scm_imag_part `imag-part' now returns an exact 0 if applied to an
1995 inexact real number. Previously it returned an inexact zero in this
1998 *** `eqv?' and `equal?' now compare numbers equivalently
2000 scm_equal_p `equal?' now behaves equivalently to scm_eqv_p `eqv?' for
2001 numeric values, per R5RS. Previously, equal? worked differently,
2002 e.g. `(equal? 0.0 -0.0)' returned #t but `(eqv? 0.0 -0.0)' returned #f,
2003 and `(equal? +nan.0 +nan.0)' returned #f but `(eqv? +nan.0 +nan.0)'
2006 *** `(equal? +nan.0 +nan.0)' now returns #t
2008 Previously, `(equal? +nan.0 +nan.0)' returned #f, although
2009 `(let ((x +nan.0)) (equal? x x))' and `(eqv? +nan.0 +nan.0)'
2010 both returned #t. R5RS requires that `equal?' behave like
2011 `eqv?' when comparing numbers.
2013 *** Change in handling products `*' involving exact 0
2015 scm_product `*' now handles exact 0 differently. A product containing
2016 an exact 0 now returns an exact 0 if and only if the other arguments
2017 are all exact. An inexact zero is returned if and only if the other
2018 arguments are all finite but not all exact. If an infinite or NaN
2019 value is present, a NaN value is returned. Previously, any product
2020 containing an exact 0 yielded an exact 0, regardless of the other
2023 *** `expt' and `integer-expt' changes when the base is 0
2025 While `(expt 0 0)' is still 1, and `(expt 0 N)' for N > 0 is still
2026 zero, `(expt 0 N)' for N < 0 is now a NaN value, and likewise for
2027 integer-expt. This is more correct, and conforming to R6RS, but seems
2028 to be incompatible with R5RS, which would return 0 for all non-zero
2031 *** `expt' and `integer-expt' are more generic, less strict
2033 When raising to an exact non-negative integer exponent, `expt' and
2034 `integer-expt' are now able to exponentiate any object that can be
2035 multiplied using `*'. They can also raise an object to an exact
2036 negative integer power if its reciprocal can be taken using `/'.
2037 In order to allow this, the type of the first argument is no longer
2038 checked when raising to an exact integer power. If the exponent is 0
2039 or 1, the first parameter is not manipulated at all, and need not
2040 even support multiplication.
2042 *** Infinities are no longer integers, nor rationals
2044 scm_integer_p `integer?' and scm_rational_p `rational?' now return #f
2045 for infinities, per R6RS. Previously they returned #t for real
2046 infinities. The real infinities and NaNs are still considered real by
2047 scm_real `real?' however, per R6RS.
2049 *** NaNs are no longer rationals
2051 scm_rational_p `rational?' now returns #f for NaN values, per R6RS.
2052 Previously it returned #t for real NaN values. They are still
2053 considered real by scm_real `real?' however, per R6RS.
2055 *** `inf?' and `nan?' now throw exceptions for non-reals
2057 The domain of `inf?' and `nan?' is the real numbers. Guile now signals
2058 an error when a non-real number or non-number is passed to these
2059 procedures. (Note that NaNs _are_ considered numbers by scheme, despite
2062 *** `rationalize' bugfixes and changes
2064 Fixed bugs in scm_rationalize `rationalize'. Previously, it returned
2065 exact integers unmodified, although that was incorrect if the epsilon
2066 was at least 1 or inexact, e.g. (rationalize 4 1) should return 3 per
2067 R5RS and R6RS, but previously it returned 4. It also now handles
2068 cases involving infinities and NaNs properly, per R6RS.
2070 *** Trigonometric functions now return exact numbers in some cases
2072 scm_sin `sin', scm_cos `cos', scm_tan `tan', scm_asin `asin', scm_acos
2073 `acos', scm_atan `atan', scm_sinh `sinh', scm_cosh `cosh', scm_tanh
2074 `tanh', scm_sys_asinh `asinh', scm_sys_acosh `acosh', and
2075 scm_sys_atanh `atanh' now return exact results in some cases.
2077 *** New procedure: `finite?'
2079 Add scm_finite_p `finite?' from R6RS to guile core, which returns #t
2080 if and only if its argument is neither infinite nor a NaN. Note that
2081 this is not the same as (not (inf? x)) or (not (infinite? x)), since
2082 NaNs are neither finite nor infinite.
2084 *** Improved exactness handling for complex number parsing
2086 When parsing non-real complex numbers, exactness specifiers are now
2087 applied to each component, as is done in PLT Scheme. For complex
2088 numbers written in rectangular form, exactness specifiers are applied
2089 to the real and imaginary parts before calling scm_make_rectangular.
2090 For complex numbers written in polar form, exactness specifiers are
2091 applied to the magnitude and angle before calling scm_make_polar.
2093 Previously, exactness specifiers were applied to the number as a whole
2094 _after_ calling scm_make_rectangular or scm_make_polar.
2096 For example, (string->number "#i5.0+0i") now does the equivalent of:
2098 (make-rectangular (exact->inexact 5.0) (exact->inexact 0))
2100 which yields 5.0+0.0i. Previously it did the equivalent of:
2102 (exact->inexact (make-rectangular 5.0 0))
2106 ** Unicode characters
2108 Unicode characters may be entered in octal format via e.g. `#\454', or
2109 created via (integer->char 300). A hex external representation will
2110 probably be introduced at some point.
2114 Internally, strings are now represented either in the `latin-1'
2115 encoding, one byte per character, or in UTF-32, with four bytes per
2116 character. Strings manage their own allocation, switching if needed.
2118 Extended characters may be written in a literal string using the
2119 hexadecimal escapes `\xXX', `\uXXXX', or `\UXXXXXX', for 8-bit, 16-bit,
2120 or 24-bit codepoints, respectively, or entered directly in the native
2121 encoding of the port on which the string is read.
2125 One may now use U+03BB (GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMBDA) as an identifier.
2127 ** Support for non-ASCII source code files
2129 The default reader now handles source code files for some of the
2130 non-ASCII character encodings, such as UTF-8. A non-ASCII source file
2131 should have an encoding declaration near the top of the file. Also,
2132 there is a new function, `file-encoding', that scans a port for a coding
2133 declaration. See the section of the manual entitled, "Character Encoding
2136 The pre-1.9.3 reader handled 8-bit clean but otherwise unspecified source
2137 code. This use is now discouraged. Binary input and output is
2138 currently supported by opening ports in the ISO-8859-1 locale.
2140 ** Source files default to UTF-8.
2142 If source files do not specify their encoding via a `coding:' block,
2143 the default encoding is UTF-8, instead of being taken from the current
2146 ** Interactive Guile installs the current locale.
2148 Instead of leaving the user in the "C" locale, running the Guile REPL
2149 installs the current locale. [FIXME xref?]
2151 ** Support for locale transcoding when reading from and writing to ports
2153 Ports now have an associated character encoding, and port read and write
2154 operations do conversion to and from locales automatically. Ports also
2155 have an associated strategy for how to deal with locale conversion
2158 See the documentation in the manual for the four new support functions,
2159 `set-port-encoding!', `port-encoding', `set-port-conversion-strategy!',
2160 and `port-conversion-strategy'.
2162 ** String and SRFI-13 functions can operate on Unicode strings
2164 ** Unicode support for SRFI-14 character sets
2166 The default character sets are no longer locale dependent and contain
2167 characters from the whole Unicode range. There is a new predefined
2168 character set, `char-set:designated', which contains all assigned
2169 Unicode characters. There is a new debugging function, `%char-set-dump'.
2171 ** Character functions operate on Unicode characters
2173 `char-upcase' and `char-downcase' use default Unicode casing rules.
2174 Character comparisons such as `char<?' and `char-ci<?' now sort based on
2175 Unicode code points.
2177 ** Global variables `scm_charnames' and `scm_charnums' are removed
2179 These variables contained the names of control characters and were
2180 used when writing characters. While these were global, they were
2181 never intended to be public API. They have been replaced with private
2184 ** EBCDIC support is removed
2186 There was an EBCDIC compile flag that altered some of the character
2187 processing. It appeared that full EBCDIC support was never completed
2188 and was unmaintained.
2190 ** Compile-time warnings
2192 Guile can warn about potentially unbound free variables. Pass the
2193 -Wunbound-variable on the `guile-tools compile' command line, or add
2194 `#:warnings '(unbound-variable)' to your `compile' or `compile-file'
2195 invocation. Warnings are also enabled by default for expressions entered
2198 Guile can also warn when you pass the wrong number of arguments to a
2199 procedure, with -Warity-mismatch, or `arity-mismatch' in the
2200 `#:warnings' as above.
2202 Other warnings include `-Wunused-variable' and `-Wunused-toplevel', to
2203 warn about unused local or global (top-level) variables, and `-Wformat',
2204 to check for various errors related to the `format' procedure.
2206 ** A new `memoize-symbol' evaluator trap has been added.
2208 This trap can be used for efficiently implementing a Scheme code
2211 ** Duplicate bindings among used modules are resolved lazily.
2213 This slightly improves program startup times.
2215 ** New thread cancellation and thread cleanup API
2217 See `cancel-thread', `set-thread-cleanup!', and `thread-cleanup'.
2219 ** New threads are in `(guile-user)' by default, not `(guile)'
2221 It used to be that a new thread entering Guile would do so in the
2222 `(guile)' module, unless this was the first time Guile was initialized,
2223 in which case it was `(guile-user)'. This has been fixed to have all
2224 new threads unknown to Guile default to `(guile-user)'.
2226 ** New helpers: `print-exception', `set-exception-printer!'
2228 These functions implement an extensible exception printer. Guile
2229 registers printers for all of the exceptions it throws. Users may add
2230 their own printers. There is also `scm_print_exception', for use by C
2231 programs. Pleasantly, this allows SRFI-35 and R6RS exceptions to be
2232 printed appropriately.
2234 ** GOOPS dispatch in scheme
2236 As an implementation detail, GOOPS dispatch is no longer implemented by
2237 special evaluator bytecodes, but rather directly via a Scheme function
2238 associated with an applicable struct. There is some VM support for the
2239 underlying primitives, like `class-of'.
2241 This change will in the future allow users to customize generic function
2242 dispatch without incurring a performance penalty, and allow us to
2243 implement method combinations.
2245 ** Applicable struct support
2247 One may now make structs from Scheme that may be applied as procedures.
2248 To do so, make a struct whose vtable is `<applicable-struct-vtable>'.
2249 That struct will be the vtable of your applicable structs; instances of
2250 that new struct are assumed to have the procedure in their first slot.
2251 `<applicable-struct-vtable>' is like Common Lisp's
2252 `funcallable-standard-class'. Likewise there is
2253 `<applicable-struct-with-setter-vtable>', which looks for the setter in
2254 the second slot. This needs to be better documented.
2258 GOOPS had a number of concepts that were relevant to the days of Tcl,
2259 but not any more: operators and entities, mainly. These objects were
2260 never documented, and it is unlikely that they were ever used. Operators
2261 were a kind of generic specific to the Tcl support. Entities were
2262 replaced by applicable structs, mentioned above.
2264 ** New struct slot allocation: "hidden"
2266 A hidden slot is readable and writable, but will not be initialized by a
2267 call to make-struct. For example in your layout you would say "ph"
2268 instead of "pw". Hidden slots are useful for adding new slots to a
2269 vtable without breaking existing invocations to make-struct.
2271 ** eqv? not a generic
2273 One used to be able to extend `eqv?' as a primitive-generic, but no
2274 more. Because `eqv?' is in the expansion of `case' (via `memv'), which
2275 should be able to compile to static dispatch tables, it doesn't make
2276 sense to allow extensions that would subvert this optimization.
2278 ** `inet-ntop' and `inet-pton' are always available.
2280 Guile now use a portable implementation of `inet_pton'/`inet_ntop', so
2281 there is no more need to use `inet-aton'/`inet-ntoa'. The latter
2282 functions are deprecated.
2284 ** `getopt-long' parsing errors throw to `quit', not `misc-error'
2286 This change should inhibit backtraces on argument parsing errors.
2287 `getopt-long' has been modified to print out the error that it throws
2290 ** New primitive: `tmpfile'.
2292 See "File System" in the manual.
2294 ** Random generator state may be serialized to a datum
2296 `random-state->datum' will serialize a random state to a datum, which
2297 may be written out, read back in later, and revivified using
2298 `datum->random-state'. See "Random" in the manual, for more details.
2300 ** Fix random number generator on 64-bit platforms
2302 There was a nasty bug on 64-bit platforms in which asking for a random
2303 integer with a range between 2**32 and 2**64 caused a segfault. After
2304 many embarrassing iterations, this was fixed.
2306 ** Fast bit operations.
2308 The bit-twiddling operations `ash', `logand', `logior', and `logxor' now
2309 have dedicated bytecodes. Guile is not just for symbolic computation,
2310 it's for number crunching too.
2312 ** Faster SRFI-9 record access
2314 SRFI-9 records are now implemented directly on top of Guile's structs,
2315 and their accessors are defined in such a way that normal call-sites
2316 inline to special VM opcodes, while still allowing for the general case
2317 (e.g. passing a record accessor to `apply').
2319 ** R6RS block comment support
2321 Guile now supports R6RS nested block comments. The start of a comment is
2322 marked with `#|', and the end with `|#'.
2324 ** `guile-2' cond-expand feature
2326 To test if your code is running under Guile 2.0 (or its alpha releases),
2327 test for the `guile-2' cond-expand feature. Like this:
2329 (cond-expand (guile-2 (eval-when (compile)
2330 ;; This must be evaluated at compile time.
2331 (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
2333 ;; Earlier versions of Guile do not have a
2334 ;; separate compilation phase.
2335 (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
2337 ** New global variables: %load-compiled-path, %load-compiled-extensions
2339 These are analogous to %load-path and %load-extensions.
2341 ** New fluid: `%file-port-name-canonicalization'
2343 This fluid parameterizes the file names that are associated with file
2344 ports. If %file-port-name-canonicalization is 'absolute, then file names
2345 are canonicalized to be absolute paths. If it is 'relative, then the
2346 name is canonicalized, but any prefix corresponding to a member of
2347 `%load-path' is stripped off. Otherwise the names are passed through
2350 In addition, the `compile-file' and `compile-and-load' procedures bind
2351 %file-port-name-canonicalization to their `#:canonicalization' keyword
2352 argument, which defaults to 'relative. In this way, one might compile
2353 "../module/ice-9/boot-9.scm", but the path that gets residualized into
2354 the .go is "ice-9/boot-9.scm".
2356 ** New procedure, `make-promise'
2358 `(make-promise (lambda () foo))' is equivalent to `(delay foo)'.
2360 ** `defined?' may accept a module as its second argument
2362 Previously it only accepted internal structures from the evaluator.
2364 ** New entry into %guile-build-info: `ccachedir'
2366 ** Fix bug in `module-bound?'.
2368 `module-bound?' was returning true if a module did have a local
2369 variable, but one that was unbound, but another imported module bound
2370 the variable. This was an error, and was fixed.
2372 ** `(ice-9 syncase)' has been deprecated.
2374 As syntax-case is available by default, importing `(ice-9 syncase)' has
2375 no effect, and will trigger a deprecation warning.
2377 ** New readline history functions
2379 The (ice-9 readline) module now provides add-history, read-history,
2380 write-history and clear-history, which wrap the corresponding GNU
2381 History library functions.
2383 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures:
2384 dimensions->uniform-array, list->uniform-array, array-prototype
2386 Instead, use make-typed-array, list->typed-array, or array-type,
2389 ** Deprecate the old `scm-style-repl'
2391 The following bindings from boot-9 are now found in `(ice-9
2392 scm-style-repl)': `scm-style-repl', `error-catching-loop',
2393 `error-catching-repl', `bad-throw', `scm-repl-silent'
2394 `assert-repl-silence', `repl-print-unspecified',
2395 `assert-repl-print-unspecified', `scm-repl-verbose',
2396 `assert-repl-verbosity', `scm-repl-prompt', `set-repl-prompt!', `repl',
2397 `default-pre-unwind-handler', `handle-system-error',
2399 The following bindings have been deprecated, with no replacement:
2400 `pre-unwind-handler-dispatch'.
2402 The following bindings have been totally removed:
2403 `before-signal-stack'.
2405 Deprecated forwarding shims have been installed so that users that
2406 expect these bindings in the main namespace will still work, but receive
2407 a deprecation warning.
2409 ** `set-batch-mode?!' replaced by `ensure-batch-mode!'
2411 "Batch mode" is a flag used to tell a program that it is not running
2412 interactively. One usually turns it on after a fork. It may not be
2413 turned off. `ensure-batch-mode!' deprecates the old `set-batch-mode?!',
2414 because it is a better interface, as it can only turn on batch mode, not
2417 ** Deprecate `save-stack', `the-last-stack'
2419 It used to be that the way to debug programs in Guile was to capture the
2420 stack at the time of error, drop back to the REPL, then debug that
2421 stack. But this approach didn't compose, was tricky to get right in the
2422 presence of threads, and was not very powerful.
2424 So `save-stack', `stack-saved?', and `the-last-stack' have been moved to
2425 `(ice-9 save-stack)', with deprecated bindings left in the root module.
2427 ** `top-repl' has its own module
2429 The `top-repl' binding, called with Guile is run interactively, is now
2430 is its own module, `(ice-9 top-repl)'. A deprecated forwarding shim was
2431 left in the default environment.
2433 ** `display-error' takes a frame
2435 The `display-error' / `scm_display_error' helper now takes a frame as an
2436 argument instead of a stack. Stacks are still supported in deprecated
2437 builds. Additionally, `display-error' will again source location
2438 information for the error.
2440 ** No more `(ice-9 debug)'
2442 This module had some debugging helpers that are no longer applicable to
2443 the current debugging model. Importing this module will produce a
2444 deprecation warning. Users should contact bug-guile for support.
2446 ** Remove obsolete debug-options
2448 Removed `breakpoints', `trace', `procnames', `indent', `frames',
2449 `maxdepth', and `debug' debug-options.
2451 ** `backtrace' debug option on by default
2453 Given that Guile 2.0 can always give you a backtrace, backtraces are now
2456 ** `turn-on-debugging' deprecated
2458 ** Remove obsolete print-options
2460 The `source' and `closure-hook' print options are obsolete, and have
2463 ** Remove obsolete read-options
2465 The "elisp-strings" and "elisp-vectors" read options were unused and
2466 obsolete, so they have been removed.
2468 ** Remove eval-options and trap-options
2470 Eval-options and trap-options are obsolete with the new VM and
2473 ** Remove (ice-9 debugger) and (ice-9 debugging)
2475 See "Traps" and "Interactive Debugging" in the manual, for information
2476 on their replacements.
2478 ** Remove the GDS Emacs integration
2480 See "Using Guile in Emacs" in the manual, for info on how we think you
2481 should use Guile with Emacs.
2483 ** Deprecated: `lazy-catch'
2485 `lazy-catch' was a form that captured the stack at the point of a
2486 `throw', but the dynamic state at the point of the `catch'. It was a bit
2487 crazy. Please change to use `catch', possibly with a throw-handler, or
2488 `with-throw-handler'.
2490 ** Deprecated: primitive properties
2492 The `primitive-make-property', `primitive-property-set!',
2493 `primitive-property-ref', and `primitive-property-del!' procedures were
2494 crufty and only used to implement object properties, which has a new,
2495 threadsafe implementation. Use object properties or weak hash tables
2498 ** Deprecated `@bind' syntax
2500 `@bind' was part of an older implementation of the Emacs Lisp language,
2501 and is no longer used.
2503 ** Miscellaneous other deprecations
2505 `cuserid' has been deprecated, as it only returns 8 bytes of a user's
2506 login. Use `(passwd:name (getpwuid (geteuid)))' instead.
2508 Additionally, the procedures `apply-to-args', `has-suffix?', `scheme-file-suffix'
2509 `get-option', `for-next-option', `display-usage-report',
2510 `transform-usage-lambda', `collect', and `set-batch-mode?!' have all
2513 ** Add support for unbound fluids
2515 See `make-unbound-fluid', `fluid-unset!', and `fluid-bound?' in the
2518 ** Add `variable-unset!'
2520 See "Variables" in the manual, for more details.
2522 ** Last but not least, the `λ' macro can be used in lieu of `lambda'
2524 * Changes to the C interface
2526 ** Guile now uses libgc, the Boehm-Demers-Weiser garbage collector
2528 The semantics of `scm_gc_malloc ()' have been changed, in a
2529 backward-compatible way. A new allocation routine,
2530 `scm_gc_malloc_pointerless ()', was added.
2532 Libgc is a conservative GC, which we hope will make interaction with C
2533 code easier and less error-prone.
2535 ** New procedures: `scm_to_stringn', `scm_from_stringn'
2536 ** New procedures: scm_{to,from}_{utf8,latin1}_symbol{n,}
2537 ** New procedures: scm_{to,from}_{utf8,utf32,latin1}_string{n,}
2539 These new procedures convert to and from string representations in
2540 particular encodings.
2542 Users should continue to use locale encoding for user input, user
2543 output, or interacting with the C library.
2545 Use the Latin-1 functions for ASCII, and for literals in source code.
2547 Use UTF-8 functions for interaction with modern libraries which deal in
2548 UTF-8, and UTF-32 for interaction with utf32-using libraries.
2550 Otherwise, use scm_to_stringn or scm_from_stringn with a specific
2553 ** New type definitions for `scm_t_intptr' and friends.
2555 `SCM_T_UINTPTR_MAX', `SCM_T_INTPTR_MIN', `SCM_T_INTPTR_MAX',
2556 `SIZEOF_SCM_T_BITS', `scm_t_intptr' and `scm_t_uintptr' are now
2557 available to C. Have fun!
2559 ** The GH interface (deprecated in version 1.6, 2001) was removed.
2561 ** Internal `scm_i_' functions now have "hidden" linkage with GCC/ELF
2563 This makes these internal functions technically not callable from
2566 ** Functions for handling `scm_option' now no longer require an argument
2567 indicating length of the `scm_t_option' array.
2569 ** Procedures-with-setters are now implemented using applicable structs
2571 From a user's perspective this doesn't mean very much. But if, for some
2572 odd reason, you used the SCM_PROCEDURE_WITH_SETTER_P, SCM_PROCEDURE, or
2573 SCM_SETTER macros, know that they're deprecated now. Also, scm_tc7_pws
2576 ** Remove old evaluator closures
2578 There used to be ranges of typecodes allocated to interpreted data
2579 structures, but that it no longer the case, given that interpreted
2580 procedure are now just regular VM closures. As a result, there is a
2581 newly free tc3, and a number of removed macros. See the ChangeLog for
2584 ** Primitive procedures are now VM trampoline procedures
2586 It used to be that there were something like 12 different typecodes
2587 allocated to primitive procedures, each with its own calling convention.
2588 Now there is only one, the gsubr. This may affect user code if you were
2589 defining a procedure using scm_c_make_subr rather scm_c_make_gsubr. The
2590 solution is to switch to use scm_c_make_gsubr. This solution works well
2591 both with the old 1.8 and with the current 1.9 branch.
2593 Guile's old evaluator used to have special cases for applying "gsubrs",
2594 primitive procedures with specified numbers of required, optional, and
2595 rest arguments. Now, however, Guile represents gsubrs as normal VM
2596 procedures, with appropriate bytecode to parse out the correct number of
2597 arguments, including optional and rest arguments, and then with a
2598 special bytecode to apply the gsubr.
2600 This allows primitive procedures to appear on the VM stack, allowing
2601 them to be accurately counted in profiles. Also they now have more
2602 debugging information attached to them -- their number of arguments, for
2603 example. In addition, the VM can completely inline the application
2604 mechanics, allowing for faster primitive calls.
2606 However there are some changes on the C level. There is no more
2607 `scm_tc7_gsubr' or `scm_tcs_subrs' typecode for primitive procedures, as
2608 they are just VM procedures. Likewise the macros `SCM_GSUBR_TYPE',
2609 `SCM_GSUBR_MAKTYPE', `SCM_GSUBR_REQ', `SCM_GSUBR_OPT', and
2610 `SCM_GSUBR_REST' are gone, as are `SCM_SUBR_META_INFO', `SCM_SUBR_PROPS'
2611 `SCM_SET_SUBR_GENERIC_LOC', and `SCM_SUBR_ARITY_TO_TYPE'.
2613 Perhaps more significantly, `scm_c_make_subr',
2614 `scm_c_make_subr_with_generic', `scm_c_define_subr', and
2615 `scm_c_define_subr_with_generic'. They all operated on subr typecodes,
2616 and there are no more subr typecodes. Use the scm_c_make_gsubr family
2619 Normal users of gsubrs should not be affected, though, as the
2620 scm_c_make_gsubr family still is the correct way to create primitive
2623 ** Remove deprecated array C interfaces
2625 Removed the deprecated array functions `scm_i_arrayp',
2626 `scm_i_array_ndim', `scm_i_array_mem', `scm_i_array_v',
2627 `scm_i_array_base', `scm_i_array_dims', and the deprecated macros
2628 `SCM_ARRAYP', `SCM_ARRAY_NDIM', `SCM_ARRAY_CONTP', `SCM_ARRAY_MEM',
2629 `SCM_ARRAY_V', `SCM_ARRAY_BASE', and `SCM_ARRAY_DIMS'.
2631 ** Remove unused snarf macros
2633 `SCM_DEFINE1', `SCM_PRIMITIVE_GENERIC_1', `SCM_PROC1, and `SCM_GPROC1'
2634 are no more. Use SCM_DEFINE or SCM_PRIMITIVE_GENERIC instead.
2636 ** New functions: `scm_call_n', `scm_c_run_hookn'
2638 `scm_call_n' applies to apply a function to an array of arguments.
2639 `scm_c_run_hookn' runs a hook with an array of arguments.
2641 ** Some SMOB types changed to have static typecodes
2643 Fluids, dynamic states, and hash tables used to be SMOB objects, but now
2644 they have statically allocated tc7 typecodes.
2646 ** Preparations for changing SMOB representation
2648 If things go right, we'll be changing the SMOB representation soon. To
2649 that end, we did a lot of cleanups to calls to e.g. SCM_CELL_WORD_2(x) when
2650 the code meant SCM_SMOB_DATA_2(x); user code will need similar changes
2651 in the future. Code accessing SMOBs using SCM_CELL macros was never
2652 correct, but until now things still worked. Users should be aware of
2655 ** Changed invocation mechanics of applicable SMOBs
2657 Guile's old evaluator used to have special cases for applying SMOB
2658 objects. Now, with the VM, when Guile sees a SMOB, it looks up a VM
2659 trampoline procedure for it, and use the normal mechanics to apply the
2660 trampoline. This simplifies procedure application in the normal,
2663 The upshot is that the mechanics used to apply a SMOB are different from
2664 1.8. Descriptors no longer have `apply_0', `apply_1', `apply_2', and
2665 `apply_3' functions, and the macros SCM_SMOB_APPLY_0 and friends are now
2666 deprecated. Just use the scm_call_0 family of procedures.
2668 ** Removed support shlibs for SRFIs 1, 4, 13, 14, and 60
2670 Though these SRFI support libraries did expose API, they encoded a
2671 strange version string into their library names. That version was never
2672 programmatically exported, so there was no way people could use the
2675 This was a fortunate oversight, as it allows us to remove the need for
2676 extra, needless shared libraries --- the C support code for SRFIs 4, 13,
2677 and 14 was already in core --- and allow us to incrementally return the
2678 SRFI implementation to Scheme.
2680 ** New C function: scm_module_public_interface
2682 This procedure corresponds to Scheme's `module-public-interface'.
2684 ** Undeprecate `scm_the_root_module ()'
2686 It's useful to be able to get the root module from C without doing a
2689 ** Inline vector allocation
2691 Instead of having vectors point out into the heap for their data, their
2692 data is now allocated inline to the vector object itself. The same is
2693 true for bytevectors, by default, though there is an indirection
2694 available which should allow for making a bytevector from an existing
2697 ** New struct constructors that don't involve making lists
2699 `scm_c_make_struct' and `scm_c_make_structv' are new varargs and array
2700 constructors, respectively, for structs. You might find them useful.
2704 In Guile 1.8, there were debugging frames on the C stack. Now there is
2705 no more need to explicitly mark the stack in this way, because Guile has
2706 a VM stack that it knows how to walk, which simplifies the C API
2707 considerably. See the ChangeLog for details; the relevant interface is
2708 in libguile/stacks.h. The Scheme API has not been changed significantly.
2710 ** Removal of Guile's primitive object system.
2712 There were a number of pieces in `objects.[ch]' that tried to be a
2713 minimal object system, but were never documented, and were quickly
2714 obseleted by GOOPS' merge into Guile proper. So `scm_make_class_object',
2715 `scm_make_subclass_object', `scm_metaclass_standard', and like symbols
2716 from objects.h are no more. In the very unlikely case in which these
2717 were useful to you, we urge you to contact guile-devel.
2721 Actually the future is still in the state that it was, is, and ever
2722 shall be, Amen, except that `futures.c' and `futures.h' are no longer a
2723 part of it. These files were experimental, never compiled, and would be
2724 better implemented in Scheme anyway. In the future, that is.
2726 ** Deprecate trampolines
2728 There used to be C functions `scm_trampoline_0', `scm_trampoline_1', and
2729 so on. The point was to do some precomputation on the type of the
2730 procedure, then return a specialized "call" procedure. However this
2731 optimization wasn't actually an optimization, so it is now deprecated.
2732 Just use `scm_call_0', etc instead.
2734 ** Deprecated `scm_badargsp'
2736 This function is unused in Guile, but was part of its API.
2738 ** Better support for Lisp `nil'.
2740 The bit representation of `nil' has been tweaked so that it is now very
2741 efficient to check e.g. if a value is equal to Scheme's end-of-list or
2742 Lisp's nil. Additionally there are a heap of new, specific predicates
2743 like scm_is_null_or_nil.
2745 ** Better integration of Lisp `nil'.
2747 `scm_is_boolean', `scm_is_false', and `scm_is_null' all return true now
2748 for Lisp's `nil'. This shouldn't affect any Scheme code at this point,
2749 but when we start to integrate more with Emacs, it is possible that we
2750 break code that assumes that, for example, `(not x)' implies that `x' is
2751 `eq?' to `#f'. This is not a common assumption. Refactoring affected
2752 code to rely on properties instead of identities will improve code
2753 correctness. See "Nil" in the manual, for more details.
2755 ** Support for static allocation of strings, symbols, and subrs.
2757 Calls to snarfing CPP macros like SCM_DEFINE macro will now allocate
2758 much of their associated data as static variables, reducing Guile's
2761 ** `scm_stat' has an additional argument, `exception_on_error'
2762 ** `scm_primitive_load_path' has an additional argument `exception_on_not_found'
2764 ** `scm_set_port_seek' and `scm_set_port_truncate' use the `scm_t_off' type
2766 Previously they would use the `off_t' type, which is fragile since its
2767 definition depends on the application's value for `_FILE_OFFSET_BITS'.
2769 ** The `long_long' C type, deprecated in 1.8, has been removed
2771 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures: scm_make_uve,
2772 scm_array_prototype, scm_list_to_uniform_array,
2773 scm_dimensions_to_uniform_array, scm_make_ra, scm_shap2ra, scm_cvref,
2774 scm_ra_set_contp, scm_aind, scm_raprin1
2776 These functions have been deprecated since early 2005.
2778 * Changes to the distribution
2780 ** Guile's license is now LGPLv3+
2782 In other words the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3 or
2783 later (at the discretion of each person that chooses to redistribute
2788 Guile's build is visually quieter, due to the use of Automake 1.11's
2789 AM_SILENT_RULES. Build as `make V=1' to see all of the output.
2791 ** GOOPS documentation folded into Guile reference manual
2793 GOOPS, Guile's object system, used to be documented in separate manuals.
2794 This content is now included in Guile's manual directly.
2796 ** `guile-config' will be deprecated in favor of `pkg-config'
2798 `guile-config' has been rewritten to get its information from
2799 `pkg-config', so this should be a transparent change. Note however that
2800 guile.m4 has yet to be modified to call pkg-config instead of
2803 ** Guile now provides `guile-2.0.pc' instead of `guile-1.8.pc'
2805 Programs that use `pkg-config' to find Guile or one of its Autoconf
2806 macros should now require `guile-2.0' instead of `guile-1.8'.
2808 ** New installation directory: $(pkglibdir)/1.9/ccache
2810 If $(libdir) is /usr/lib, for example, Guile will install its .go files
2811 to /usr/lib/guile/1.9/ccache. These files are architecture-specific.
2813 ** Parallel installability fixes
2815 Guile now installs its header files to a effective-version-specific
2816 directory, and includes the effective version (e.g. 2.0) in the library
2817 name (e.g. libguile-2.0.so).
2819 This change should be transparent to users, who should detect Guile via
2820 the guile.m4 macro, or the guile-2.0.pc pkg-config file. It will allow
2821 parallel installs for multiple versions of Guile development
2824 ** Dynamically loadable extensions may be placed in a Guile-specific path
2826 Before, Guile only searched the system library paths for extensions
2827 (e.g. /usr/lib), which meant that the names of Guile extensions had to
2828 be globally unique. Installing them to a Guile-specific extensions
2829 directory is cleaner. Use `pkg-config --variable=extensiondir
2830 guile-2.0' to get the location of the extensions directory.
2832 ** User Scheme code may be placed in a version-specific path
2834 Before, there was only one way to install user Scheme code to a
2835 version-specific Guile directory: install to Guile's own path,
2836 e.g. /usr/share/guile/2.0. The site directory,
2837 e.g. /usr/share/guile/site, was unversioned. This has been changed to
2838 add a version-specific site directory, e.g. /usr/share/guile/site/2.0,
2839 searched before the global site directory.
2841 ** New dependency: libgc
2843 See http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/, for more information.
2845 ** New dependency: GNU libunistring
2847 See http://www.gnu.org/software/libunistring/, for more information. Our
2848 Unicode support uses routines from libunistring.
2850 ** New dependency: libffi
2852 See http://sourceware.org/libffi/, for more information.
2856 Changes in 1.8.8 (since 1.8.7)
2860 ** Fix possible buffer overruns when parsing numbers
2861 ** Avoid clash with system setjmp/longjmp on IA64
2862 ** Fix `wrong type arg' exceptions with IPv6 addresses
2865 Changes in 1.8.7 (since 1.8.6)
2867 * New modules (see the manual for details)
2869 ** `(srfi srfi-98)', an interface to access environment variables
2873 ** Fix compilation with `--disable-deprecated'
2874 ** Fix %fast-slot-ref/set!, to avoid possible segmentation fault
2875 ** Fix MinGW build problem caused by HAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC confusion
2876 ** Fix build problem when scm_t_timespec is different from struct timespec
2877 ** Fix build when compiled with -Wundef -Werror
2878 ** More build fixes for `alphaev56-dec-osf5.1b' (Tru64)
2879 ** Build fixes for `powerpc-ibm-aix5.3.0.0' (AIX 5.3)
2880 ** With GCC, always compile with `-mieee' on `alpha*' and `sh*'
2881 ** Better diagnose broken `(strftime "%z" ...)' in `time.test' (bug #24130)
2882 ** Fix parsing of SRFI-88/postfix keywords longer than 128 characters
2883 ** Fix reading of complex numbers where both parts are inexact decimals
2885 ** Allow @ macro to work with (ice-9 syncase)
2887 Previously, use of the @ macro in a module whose code is being
2888 transformed by (ice-9 syncase) would cause an "Invalid syntax" error.
2889 Now it works as you would expect (giving the value of the specified
2892 ** Have `scm_take_locale_symbol ()' return an interned symbol (bug #25865)
2895 Changes in 1.8.6 (since 1.8.5)
2897 * New features (see the manual for details)
2899 ** New convenience function `scm_c_symbol_length ()'
2901 ** Single stepping through code from Emacs
2903 When you use GDS to evaluate Scheme code from Emacs, you can now use
2904 `C-u' to indicate that you want to single step through that code. See
2905 `Evaluating Scheme Code' in the manual for more details.
2907 ** New "guile(1)" man page!
2909 * Changes to the distribution
2911 ** Automake's `AM_MAINTAINER_MODE' is no longer used
2913 Thus, the `--enable-maintainer-mode' configure option is no longer
2914 available: Guile is now always configured in "maintainer mode".
2916 ** `ChangeLog' files are no longer updated
2918 Instead, changes are detailed in the version control system's logs. See
2919 the top-level `ChangeLog' files for details.
2924 ** `symbol->string' now returns a read-only string, as per R5RS
2925 ** Fix incorrect handling of the FLAGS argument of `fold-matches'
2926 ** `guile-config link' now prints `-L$libdir' before `-lguile'
2927 ** Fix memory corruption involving GOOPS' `class-redefinition'
2928 ** Fix possible deadlock in `mutex-lock'
2929 ** Fix build issue on Tru64 and ia64-hp-hpux11.23 (`SCM_UNPACK' macro)
2930 ** Fix build issue on mips, mipsel, powerpc and ia64 (stack direction)
2931 ** Fix build issue on hppa2.0w-hp-hpux11.11 (`dirent64' and `readdir64_r')
2932 ** Fix build issue on i386-unknown-freebsd7.0 ("break strict-aliasing rules")
2933 ** Fix misleading output from `(help rationalize)'
2934 ** Fix build failure on Debian hppa architecture (bad stack growth detection)
2935 ** Fix `gcd' when called with a single, negative argument.
2936 ** Fix `Stack overflow' errors seen when building on some platforms
2937 ** Fix bug when `scm_with_guile ()' was called several times from the
2939 ** The handler of SRFI-34 `with-exception-handler' is now invoked in the
2940 dynamic environment of the call to `raise'
2941 ** Fix potential deadlock in `make-struct'
2942 ** Fix compilation problem with libltdl from Libtool 2.2.x
2943 ** Fix sloppy bound checking in `string-{ref,set!}' with the empty string
2946 Changes in 1.8.5 (since 1.8.4)
2948 * Infrastructure changes
2950 ** Guile repository switched from CVS to Git
2952 The new repository can be accessed using
2953 "git-clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/guile.git", or can be browsed on-line at
2954 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=guile.git . See `README' for details.
2956 ** Add support for `pkg-config'
2958 See "Autoconf Support" in the manual for details.
2960 * New modules (see the manual for details)
2964 * New features (see the manual for details)
2966 ** New `postfix' read option, for SRFI-88 keyword syntax
2967 ** Some I/O primitives have been inlined, which improves I/O performance
2968 ** New object-based traps infrastructure
2970 This is a GOOPS-based infrastructure that builds on Guile's low-level
2971 evaluator trap calls and facilitates the development of debugging
2972 features like single-stepping, breakpoints, tracing and profiling.
2973 See the `Traps' node of the manual for details.
2975 ** New support for working on Guile code from within Emacs
2977 Guile now incorporates the `GDS' library (previously distributed
2978 separately) for working on Guile code from within Emacs. See the
2979 `Using Guile In Emacs' node of the manual for details.
2983 ** `scm_add_slot ()' no longer segfaults (fixes bug #22369)
2984 ** Fixed `(ice-9 match)' for patterns like `((_ ...) ...)'
2986 Previously, expressions like `(match '((foo) (bar)) (((_ ...) ...) #t))'
2987 would trigger an unbound variable error for `match:andmap'.
2989 ** `(oop goops describe)' now properly provides the `describe' feature
2990 ** Fixed `args-fold' from `(srfi srfi-37)'
2992 Previously, parsing short option names of argument-less options would
2993 lead to a stack overflow.
2995 ** `(srfi srfi-35)' is now visible through `cond-expand'
2996 ** Fixed type-checking for the second argument of `eval'
2997 ** Fixed type-checking for SRFI-1 `partition'
2998 ** Fixed `struct-ref' and `struct-set!' on "light structs"
2999 ** Honor struct field access rights in GOOPS
3000 ** Changed the storage strategy of source properties, which fixes a deadlock
3001 ** Allow compilation of Guile-using programs in C99 mode with GCC 4.3 and later
3002 ** Fixed build issue for GNU/Linux on IA64
3003 ** Fixed build issues on NetBSD 1.6
3004 ** Fixed build issue on Solaris 2.10 x86_64
3005 ** Fixed build issue with DEC/Compaq/HP's compiler
3006 ** Fixed `scm_from_complex_double' build issue on FreeBSD
3007 ** Fixed `alloca' build issue on FreeBSD 6
3008 ** Removed use of non-portable makefile constructs
3009 ** Fixed shadowing of libc's <random.h> on Tru64, which broke compilation
3010 ** Make sure all tests honor `$TMPDIR'
3013 Changes in 1.8.4 (since 1.8.3)
3017 ** CR (ASCII 0x0d) is (again) recognized as a token delimiter by the reader
3018 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when displaying the
3019 backtrace of a stack with a promise object (made by `delay') in it.
3020 ** Make `accept' leave guile mode while blocking
3021 ** `scm_c_read ()' and `scm_c_write ()' now type-check their port argument
3022 ** Fixed a build problem on AIX (use of func_data identifier)
3023 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when hashx-ref or hashx-set! was
3024 called with an associator proc that returns neither a pair nor #f.
3025 ** Secondary threads now always return a valid module for (current-module).
3026 ** Avoid MacOS build problems caused by incorrect combination of "64"
3027 system and library calls.
3028 ** `guile-snarf' now honors `$TMPDIR'
3029 ** `guile-config compile' now reports CPPFLAGS used at compile-time
3030 ** Fixed build with Sun Studio (Solaris 9)
3031 ** Fixed wrong-type-arg errors when creating zero length SRFI-4
3032 uniform vectors on AIX.
3033 ** Fixed a deadlock that occurs upon GC with multiple threads.
3034 ** Fixed compile problem with GCC on Solaris and AIX (use of _Complex_I)
3035 ** Fixed autotool-derived build problems on AIX 6.1.
3036 ** Fixed NetBSD/alpha support
3037 ** Fixed MacOS build problem caused by use of rl_get_keymap(_name)
3039 * New modules (see the manual for details)
3043 * Documentation fixes and improvements
3045 ** Removed premature breakpoint documentation
3047 The features described are not available in the series of 1.8.x
3048 releases, so the documentation was misleading and has been removed.
3050 ** More about Guile's default *random-state* variable
3052 ** GOOPS: more about how to use `next-method'
3054 * Changes to the distribution
3056 ** Corrected a few files that referred incorrectly to the old GPL + special exception licence
3058 In fact Guile since 1.8.0 has been licensed with the GNU Lesser
3059 General Public License, and the few incorrect files have now been
3060 fixed to agree with the rest of the Guile distribution.
3062 ** Removed unnecessary extra copies of COPYING*
3064 The distribution now contains a single COPYING.LESSER at its top level.
3067 Changes in 1.8.3 (since 1.8.2)
3069 * New modules (see the manual for details)
3076 ** The `(ice-9 slib)' module now works as expected
3077 ** Expressions like "(set! 'x #t)" no longer yield a crash
3078 ** Warnings about duplicate bindings now go to stderr
3079 ** A memory leak in `make-socket-address' was fixed
3080 ** Alignment issues (e.g., on SPARC) in network routines were fixed
3081 ** A threading issue that showed up at least on NetBSD was fixed
3082 ** Build problems on Solaris and IRIX fixed
3084 * Implementation improvements
3086 ** The reader is now faster, which reduces startup time
3087 ** Procedures returned by `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' are faster
3090 Changes in 1.8.2 (since 1.8.1):
3092 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
3094 ** set-program-arguments
3097 * Incompatible changes
3099 ** The body of a top-level `define' no longer sees the binding being created
3101 In a top-level `define', the binding being created is no longer visible
3102 from the `define' body. This breaks code like
3103 "(define foo (begin (set! foo 1) (+ foo 1)))", where `foo' is now
3104 unbound in the body. However, such code was not R5RS-compliant anyway,
3109 ** Fractions were not `equal?' if stored in unreduced form.
3110 (A subtle problem, since printing a value reduced it, making it work.)
3111 ** srfi-60 `copy-bit' failed on 64-bit systems
3112 ** "guile --use-srfi" option at the REPL can replace core functions
3113 (Programs run with that option were ok, but in the interactive REPL
3114 the core bindings got priority, preventing SRFI replacements or
3116 ** `regexp-exec' doesn't abort() on #\nul in the input or bad flags arg
3117 ** `kill' on mingw throws an error for a PID other than oneself
3118 ** Procedure names are attached to procedure-with-setters
3119 ** Array read syntax works with negative lower bound
3120 ** `array-in-bounds?' fix if an array has different lower bounds on each index
3121 ** `*' returns exact 0 for "(* inexact 0)"
3122 This follows what it always did for "(* 0 inexact)".
3123 ** SRFI-19: Value returned by `(current-time time-process)' was incorrect
3124 ** SRFI-19: `date->julian-day' did not account for timezone offset
3125 ** `ttyname' no longer crashes when passed a non-tty argument
3126 ** `inet-ntop' no longer crashes on SPARC when passed an `AF_INET' address
3127 ** Small memory leaks have been fixed in `make-fluid' and `add-history'
3128 ** GOOPS: Fixed a bug in `method-more-specific?'
3129 ** Build problems on Solaris fixed
3130 ** Build problems on HP-UX IA64 fixed
3131 ** Build problems on MinGW fixed
3134 Changes in 1.8.1 (since 1.8.0):
3136 * LFS functions are now used to access 64-bit files on 32-bit systems.
3138 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
3140 ** primitive-_exit - [Scheme] the-root-module
3141 ** scm_primitive__exit - [C]
3142 ** make-completion-function - [Scheme] (ice-9 readline)
3143 ** scm_c_locale_stringn_to_number - [C]
3144 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse [C]
3145 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse_x [C]
3153 ** Build problems have been fixed on MacOS, SunOS, and QNX.
3155 ** `strftime' fix sign of %z timezone offset.
3157 ** A one-dimensional array can now be 'equal?' to a vector.
3159 ** Structures, records, and SRFI-9 records can now be compared with `equal?'.
3161 ** SRFI-14 standard char sets are recomputed upon a successful `setlocale'.
3163 ** `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' now have strict type checks.
3165 Record accessor and modifier procedures now throw an error if the
3166 record type of the record they're given is not the type expected.
3167 (Previously accessors returned #f and modifiers silently did nothing).
3169 ** It is now OK to use both autoload and use-modules on a given module.
3171 ** `apply' checks the number of arguments more carefully on "0 or 1" funcs.
3173 Previously there was no checking on primatives like make-vector that
3174 accept "one or two" arguments. Now there is.
3176 ** The srfi-1 assoc function now calls its equality predicate properly.
3178 Previously srfi-1 assoc would call the equality predicate with the key
3179 last. According to the SRFI, the key should be first.
3181 ** A bug in n-par-for-each and n-for-each-par-map has been fixed.
3183 ** The array-set! procedure no longer segfaults when given a bit vector.
3185 ** Bugs in make-shared-array have been fixed.
3187 ** string<? and friends now follow char<? etc order on 8-bit chars.
3189 ** The format procedure now handles inf and nan values for ~f correctly.
3191 ** exact->inexact should no longer overflow when given certain large fractions.
3193 ** srfi-9 accessor and modifier procedures now have strict record type checks.
3195 This matches the srfi-9 specification.
3197 ** (ice-9 ftw) procedures won't ignore different files with same inode number.
3199 Previously the (ice-9 ftw) procedures would ignore any file that had
3200 the same inode number as a file they had already seen, even if that
3201 file was on a different device.
3204 Changes in 1.8.0 (changes since the 1.6.x series):
3206 * Changes to the distribution
3208 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
3210 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
3212 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
3214 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
3216 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
3218 That is, things like HAVE_STRING_H no longer leak from Guile's
3221 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
3223 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
3224 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
3225 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
3226 so the current effective-version is "1.8". The effective version
3227 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
3228 items like the versioned share directory name
3229 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.8.
3231 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
3232 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
3233 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
3234 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
3235 with each micro release during a stable series.
3237 ** Thread implementation has changed.
3239 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
3240 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
3241 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
3242 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
3243 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
3246 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
3247 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
3248 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
3249 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
3252 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
3253 in which case "null" threads are used.
3255 See the manual for details, nodes "Initialization", "Multi-Threading",
3256 "Blocking", and others.
3258 ** There is the new notion of 'discouraged' features.
3260 This is a milder form of deprecation.
3262 Things that are discouraged should not be used in new code, but it is
3263 OK to leave them in old code for now. When a discouraged feature is
3264 used, no warning message is printed like there is for 'deprecated'
3265 features. Also, things that are merely discouraged are nevertheless
3266 implemented efficiently, while deprecated features can be very slow.
3268 You can omit discouraged features from libguile by configuring it with
3269 the '--disable-discouraged' option.
3271 ** Deprecation warnings can be controlled at run-time.
3273 (debug-enable 'warn-deprecated) switches them on and (debug-disable
3274 'warn-deprecated) switches them off.
3276 ** Support for SRFI 61, extended cond syntax for multiple values has
3279 This SRFI is always available.
3281 ** Support for require-extension, SRFI-55, has been added.
3283 The SRFI-55 special form `require-extension' has been added. It is
3284 available at startup, and provides a portable way to load Scheme
3285 extensions. SRFI-55 only requires support for one type of extension,
3286 "srfi"; so a set of SRFIs may be loaded via (require-extension (srfi 1
3289 ** New module (srfi srfi-26) provides support for `cut' and `cute'.
3291 The (srfi srfi-26) module is an implementation of SRFI-26 which
3292 provides the `cut' and `cute' syntax. These may be used to specialize
3293 parameters without currying.
3295 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
3297 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
3298 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
3300 ** The modules (srfi srfi-13), (srfi srfi-14) and (srfi srfi-4) have
3301 been merged with the core, making their functionality always
3304 The modules are still available, tho, and you could use them together
3305 with a renaming import, for example.
3307 ** Guile no longer includes its own version of libltdl.
3309 The official version is good enough now.
3311 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
3313 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
3314 provided. Use 'make html'.
3316 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
3318 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when you
3319 don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but where you
3320 have some section(s) of code which you consider can run in parallel to
3321 other sections. See ice-9/serialize.scm for more information.
3323 ** The configure option '--disable-arrays' has been removed.
3325 Support for arrays and uniform numeric arrays is now always included
3328 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3330 ** New command line option `-L'.
3332 This option adds a directory to the front of the load path.
3334 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
3336 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
3337 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
3339 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
3341 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
3342 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
3344 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
3346 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
3347 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
3350 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
3353 (define-module (demo)
3357 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
3360 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3362 ** Guardians have changed back to their original semantics
3364 Guardians now behave like described in the paper by Dybvig et al. In
3365 particular, they no longer make guarantees about the order in which
3366 they return objects, and they can no longer be greedy.
3368 They no longer drop cyclic data structures.
3370 The C function scm_make_guardian has been changed incompatibly and no
3371 longer takes the 'greedy_p' argument.
3373 ** New function hashx-remove!
3375 This function completes the set of 'hashx' functions.
3377 ** The concept of dynamic roots has been factored into continuation
3378 barriers and dynamic states.
3380 Each thread has a current dynamic state that carries the values of the
3381 fluids. You can create and copy dynamic states and use them as the
3382 second argument for 'eval'. See "Fluids and Dynamic States" in the
3385 To restrict the influence that captured continuations can have on the
3386 control flow, you can errect continuation barriers. See "Continuation
3387 Barriers" in the manual.
3389 The function call-with-dynamic-root now essentially temporarily
3390 installs a new dynamic state and errects a continuation barrier.
3392 ** The default load path no longer includes "." at the end.
3394 Automatically loading modules from the current directory should not
3395 happen by default. If you want to allow it in a more controlled
3396 manner, set the environment variable GUILE_LOAD_PATH or the Scheme
3397 variable %load-path.
3399 ** The uniform vector and array support has been overhauled.
3401 It now complies with SRFI-4 and the weird prototype based uniform
3402 array creation has been deprecated. See the manual for more details.
3404 Some non-compatible changes have been made:
3405 - characters can no longer be stored into byte arrays.
3406 - strings and bit vectors are no longer considered to be uniform numeric
3408 - array-rank throws an error for non-arrays instead of returning zero.
3409 - array-ref does no longer accept non-arrays when no indices are given.
3411 There is the new notion of 'generalized vectors' and corresponding
3412 procedures like 'generalized-vector-ref'. Generalized vectors include
3413 strings, bitvectors, ordinary vectors, and uniform numeric vectors.
3415 Arrays use generalized vectors as their storage, so that you still
3416 have arrays of characters, bits, etc. However, uniform-array-read!
3417 and uniform-array-write can no longer read/write strings and
3420 ** There is now support for copy-on-write substrings, mutation-sharing
3421 substrings and read-only strings.
3423 Three new procedures are related to this: substring/shared,
3424 substring/copy, and substring/read-only. See the manual for more
3427 ** Backtraces will now highlight the value that caused the error.
3429 By default, these values are enclosed in "{...}", such as in this
3438 <unnamed port>:1:1: In procedure car in expression (car (quote a)):
3439 <unnamed port>:1:1: Wrong type (expecting pair): a
3440 ABORT: (wrong-type-arg)
3442 The prefix and suffix used for highlighting can be set via the two new
3443 printer options 'highlight-prefix' and 'highlight-suffix'. For
3444 example, putting this into ~/.guile will output the bad value in bold
3445 on an ANSI terminal:
3447 (print-set! highlight-prefix "\x1b[1m")
3448 (print-set! highlight-suffix "\x1b[22m")
3451 ** 'gettext' support for internationalization has been added.
3453 See the manual for details.
3455 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
3457 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
3460 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
3462 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
3463 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
3464 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
3465 '@' as a target of 'set!', as in (set! (@ mod var) val).
3467 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
3468 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
3469 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
3472 ** Keyword syntax has been made more disciplined.
3474 Previously, the name of a keyword was read as a 'token' but printed as
3475 a symbol. Now, it is read as a general Scheme datum which must be a
3486 ERROR: In expression (a b c):
3490 ERROR: Unbound variable: foo
3495 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): 12
3499 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): (a b c)
3503 ** The printing of symbols that might look like keywords can be
3506 The new printer option 'quote-keywordish-symbols' controls how symbols
3507 are printed that have a colon as their first or last character. The
3508 default now is to only quote a symbol with #{...}# when the read
3509 option 'keywords' is not '#f'. Thus:
3511 guile> (define foo (string->symbol ":foo"))
3512 guile> (read-set! keywords #f)
3515 guile> (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
3518 guile> (print-set! quote-keywordish-symbols #f)
3522 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
3524 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
3525 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
3526 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
3529 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
3532 ** The module system now checks for duplicate bindings.
3534 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
3537 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more 'duplicates'
3538 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
3541 (define-module (foo)
3546 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
3547 has been detected is to
3549 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
3550 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
3551 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
3554 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
3557 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
3559 to your .guile init file.
3561 ** New define-module option: :replace
3563 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
3566 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
3567 for the core binding `format'.
3569 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
3571 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
3572 a prefix to all imported bindings.
3574 (define-module (foo)
3575 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
3577 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
3580 ** Conflicting generic functions can be automatically merged.
3582 When two imported bindings conflict and they are both generic
3583 functions, the two functions can now be merged automatically. This is
3584 activated with the 'duplicates' handler 'merge-generics'.
3586 ** New function: effective-version
3588 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
3589 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
3590 to the distribution" above.
3592 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
3594 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
3595 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
3597 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
3599 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
3600 instead of blocking and indicate failure.
3602 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
3604 The function 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
3605 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
3608 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
3610 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
3612 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
3614 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
3615 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
3616 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
3619 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
3620 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
3621 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
3622 'system-async-mark'.
3624 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
3625 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
3627 When a thread blocks on a mutex, a condition variable or is waiting
3628 for IO to be possible, it will still execute system asyncs. This can
3629 be used to interrupt such a thread by making it execute a 'throw', for
3632 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
3634 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
3635 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
3638 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
3639 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
3641 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
3642 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
3643 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
3644 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
3645 level for the current thread.
3647 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
3649 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
3651 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
3652 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
3655 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
3657 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
3659 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
3662 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
3664 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
3667 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
3668 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
3669 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
3671 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
3672 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
3673 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
3674 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
3685 ERROR: Numerical overflow
3687 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
3690 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
3692 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
3693 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
3694 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
3705 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
3707 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
3708 them is also done exactly, of course:
3713 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
3714 for exact arguments.
3716 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
3717 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
3719 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
3721 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
3722 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
3723 equal to a floating point number. For example:
3725 (inexact->exact 1.234)
3726 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
3728 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitly:
3730 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
3733 ** New function 'rationalize'.
3735 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
3736 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
3738 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
3741 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
3742 result when both its arguments are exact.
3744 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
3746 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
3747 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
3748 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
3750 ** Guile now has uninterned symbols.
3752 The new function 'make-symbol' will return an uninterned symbol. This
3753 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
3754 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
3756 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
3759 ** pretty-print has more options.
3761 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
3762 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
3763 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
3765 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
3767 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
3768 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
3769 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
3771 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
3773 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
3774 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
3776 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
3778 Change your code to use 'define-macro' or r5rs macros. Also, be aware
3779 that macro expansion will not be done during evaluation, but prior to
3782 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
3784 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
3785 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
3786 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
3787 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
3788 without the soft port blocking.
3790 ** Deprecated: undefine
3792 There is no replacement for undefine.
3794 ** The functions make-keyword-from-dash-symbol and keyword-dash-symbol
3795 have been discouraged.
3797 They are relics from a time where a keyword like #:foo was used
3798 directly as a Tcl option "-foo" and thus keywords were internally
3799 stored as a symbol with a starting dash. We now store a symbol
3802 Use symbol->keyword and keyword->symbol instead.
3804 ** The `cheap' debug option is now obsolete
3806 Evaluator trap calls are now unconditionally "cheap" - in other words,
3807 they pass a debug object to the trap handler rather than a full
3808 continuation. The trap handler code can capture a full continuation
3809 by using `call-with-current-continuation' in the usual way, if it so
3812 The `cheap' option is retained for now so as not to break existing
3813 code which gets or sets it, but setting it now has no effect. It will
3814 be removed in the next major Guile release.
3816 ** Evaluator trap calls now support `tweaking'
3818 `Tweaking' means that the trap handler code can modify the Scheme
3819 expression that is about to be evaluated (in the case of an
3820 enter-frame trap) or the value that is being returned (in the case of
3821 an exit-frame trap). The trap handler code indicates that it wants to
3822 do this by returning a pair whose car is the symbol 'instead and whose
3823 cdr is the modified expression or return value.
3825 * Changes to the C interface
3827 ** The functions scm_hash_fn_remove_x and scm_hashx_remove_x no longer
3828 take a 'delete' function argument.
3830 This argument makes no sense since the delete function is used to
3831 remove a pair from an alist, and this must not be configurable.
3833 This is an incompatible change.
3835 ** The GH interface is now subject to the deprecation mechanism
3837 The GH interface has been deprecated for quite some time but now it is
3838 actually removed from Guile when it is configured with
3839 --disable-deprecated.
3841 See the manual "Transitioning away from GH" for more information.
3843 ** A new family of functions for converting between C values and
3844 Scheme values has been added.
3846 These functions follow a common naming scheme and are designed to be
3847 easier to use, thread-safe and more future-proof than the older
3850 - int scm_is_* (...)
3852 These are predicates that return a C boolean: 1 or 0. Instead of
3853 SCM_NFALSEP, you can now use scm_is_true, for example.
3855 - <type> scm_to_<type> (SCM val, ...)
3857 These are functions that convert a Scheme value into an appropriate
3858 C value. For example, you can use scm_to_int to safely convert from
3861 - SCM scm_from_<type> (<type> val, ...)
3863 These functions convert from a C type to a SCM value; for example,
3864 scm_from_int for ints.
3866 There is a huge number of these functions, for numbers, strings,
3867 symbols, vectors, etc. They are documented in the reference manual in
3868 the API section together with the types that they apply to.
3870 ** New functions for dealing with complex numbers in C have been added.
3872 The new functions are scm_c_make_rectangular, scm_c_make_polar,
3873 scm_c_real_part, scm_c_imag_part, scm_c_magnitude and scm_c_angle.
3874 They work like scm_make_rectangular etc but take or return doubles
3877 ** The function scm_make_complex has been discouraged.
3879 Use scm_c_make_rectangular instead.
3881 ** The INUM macros have been deprecated.
3883 A lot of code uses these macros to do general integer conversions,
3884 although the macros only work correctly with fixnums. Use the
3885 following alternatives.
3887 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
3888 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
3889 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
3890 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
3892 SCM_VALIDATE_INUM_* -> Do not use these; scm_to_int, etc. will
3893 do the validating for you.
3895 ** The scm_num2<type> and scm_<type>2num functions and scm_make_real
3896 have been discouraged.
3898 Use the newer scm_to_<type> and scm_from_<type> functions instead for
3899 new code. The functions have been discouraged since they don't fit
3902 ** The 'boolean' macros SCM_FALSEP etc have been discouraged.
3904 They have strange names, especially SCM_NFALSEP, and SCM_BOOLP
3905 evaluates its argument twice. Use scm_is_true, etc. instead for new
3908 ** The macro SCM_EQ_P has been discouraged.
3910 Use scm_is_eq for new code, which fits better into the naming
3913 ** The macros SCM_CONSP, SCM_NCONSP, SCM_NULLP, and SCM_NNULLP have
3916 Use the function scm_is_pair or scm_is_null instead.
3918 ** The functions scm_round and scm_truncate have been deprecated and
3919 are now available as scm_c_round and scm_c_truncate, respectively.
3921 These functions occupy the names that scm_round_number and
3922 scm_truncate_number should have.
3924 ** The functions scm_c_string2str, scm_c_substring2str, and
3925 scm_c_symbol2str have been deprecated.
3927 Use scm_to_locale_stringbuf or similar instead, maybe together with
3930 ** New functions scm_c_make_string, scm_c_string_length,
3931 scm_c_string_ref, scm_c_string_set_x, scm_c_substring,
3932 scm_c_substring_shared, scm_c_substring_copy.
3934 These are like scm_make_string, scm_length, etc. but are slightly
3935 easier to use from C.
3937 ** The macros SCM_STRINGP, SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_STRING_LENGTH,
3938 SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, and SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH have been deprecated.
3940 They export too many assumptions about the implementation of strings
3941 and symbols that are no longer true in the presence of
3942 mutation-sharing substrings and when Guile switches to some form of
3945 When working with strings, it is often best to use the normal string
3946 functions provided by Guile, such as scm_c_string_ref,
3947 scm_c_string_set_x, scm_string_append, etc. Be sure to look in the
3948 manual since many more such functions are now provided than
3951 When you want to convert a SCM string to a C string, use the
3952 scm_to_locale_string function or similar instead. For symbols, use
3953 scm_symbol_to_string and then work with that string. Because of the
3954 new string representation, scm_symbol_to_string does not need to copy
3955 and is thus quite efficient.
3957 ** Some string, symbol and keyword functions have been discouraged.
3959 They don't fit into the uniform naming scheme and are not explicit
3960 about the character encoding.
3962 Replace according to the following table:
3964 scm_allocate_string -> scm_c_make_string
3965 scm_take_str -> scm_take_locale_stringn
3966 scm_take0str -> scm_take_locale_string
3967 scm_mem2string -> scm_from_locale_stringn
3968 scm_str2string -> scm_from_locale_string
3969 scm_makfrom0str -> scm_from_locale_string
3970 scm_mem2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symboln
3971 scm_mem2uninterned_symbol -> scm_from_locale_stringn + scm_make_symbol
3972 scm_str2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symbol
3974 SCM_SYMBOL_HASH -> scm_hashq
3975 SCM_SYMBOL_INTERNED_P -> scm_symbol_interned_p
3977 scm_c_make_keyword -> scm_from_locale_keyword
3979 ** The functions scm_keyword_to_symbol and sym_symbol_to_keyword are
3980 now also available to C code.
3982 ** SCM_KEYWORDP and SCM_KEYWORDSYM have been deprecated.
3984 Use scm_is_keyword and scm_keyword_to_symbol instead, but note that
3985 the latter returns the true name of the keyword, not the 'dash name',
3986 as SCM_KEYWORDSYM used to do.
3988 ** A new way to access arrays in a thread-safe and efficient way has
3991 See the manual, node "Accessing Arrays From C".
3993 ** The old uniform vector and bitvector implementations have been
3994 unceremoniously removed.
3996 This implementation exposed the details of the tagging system of
3997 Guile. Use the new C API explained in the manual in node "Uniform
3998 Numeric Vectors" and "Bit Vectors", respectively.
4000 The following macros are gone: SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE,
4001 SCM_UVECTOR_MAXLENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_UVECTOR_TAG,
4002 SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVECTOR_P, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE,
4003 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
4004 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_BITVECTOR_TAG,
4005 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVEC_REF, SCM_BITVEC_SET,
4008 ** The macros dealing with vectors have been deprecated.
4010 Use the new functions scm_is_vector, scm_vector_elements,
4011 scm_vector_writable_elements, etc, or scm_is_simple_vector,
4012 SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_REF, SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_SET, etc instead. See the
4013 manual for more details.
4015 Deprecated are SCM_VECTORP, SCM_VELTS, SCM_VECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
4016 SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_REF, SCM_VECTOR_SET, SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS.
4018 The following macros have been removed: SCM_VECTOR_BASE,
4019 SCM_SET_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_MAKE_VECTOR_TAG, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH,
4020 SCM_VELTS_AS_STACKITEMS, SCM_SETVELTS, SCM_GC_WRITABLE_VELTS.
4022 ** Some C functions and macros related to arrays have been deprecated.
4024 Migrate according to the following table:
4026 scm_make_uve -> scm_make_typed_array, scm_make_u8vector etc.
4027 scm_make_ra -> scm_make_array
4028 scm_shap2ra -> scm_make_array
4029 scm_cvref -> scm_c_generalized_vector_ref
4030 scm_ra_set_contp -> do not use
4031 scm_aind -> scm_array_handle_pos
4032 scm_raprin1 -> scm_display or scm_write
4034 SCM_ARRAYP -> scm_is_array
4035 SCM_ARRAY_NDIM -> scm_c_array_rank
4036 SCM_ARRAY_DIMS -> scm_array_handle_dims
4037 SCM_ARRAY_CONTP -> do not use
4038 SCM_ARRAY_MEM -> do not use
4039 SCM_ARRAY_V -> scm_array_handle_elements or similar
4040 SCM_ARRAY_BASE -> do not use
4042 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
4044 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which returns a pointer
4045 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
4047 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
4048 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
4049 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
4050 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
4052 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SCM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
4054 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
4055 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
4056 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
4058 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
4059 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
4061 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
4062 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
4063 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
4064 smob word. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
4066 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and re-entries.
4068 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
4069 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
4070 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
4071 prevent a potential memory leak:
4078 scm_dynwind_begin (0);
4080 mem = scm_malloc (100);
4081 scm_dynwind_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY);
4083 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
4084 SCM_DYNWIND_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless.
4091 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY, MEM will be freed by
4092 SCM_DYNWIND_END as well.
4096 For full documentation, see the node "Dynamic Wind" in the manual.
4098 ** New function scm_dynwind_free
4100 This function calls 'free' on a given pointer when a dynwind context
4101 is left. Thus the call to scm_dynwind_unwind_handler above could be
4102 replaced with simply scm_dynwind_free (mem).
4104 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
4105 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
4107 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
4109 ** New functions scm_dynwind_block_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs
4111 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
4112 scm_dynwind_block_asyncs in a 'dynwind context' (see above). Likewise for
4113 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs.
4115 ** The macros SCM_DEFER_INTS, SCM_ALLOW_INTS, SCM_REDEFER_INTS,
4116 SCM_REALLOW_INTS have been deprecated.
4118 They do no longer fulfill their original role of blocking signal
4119 delivery. Depending on what you want to achieve, replace a pair of
4120 SCM_DEFER_INTS and SCM_ALLOW_INTS with a dynwind context that locks a
4121 mutex, blocks asyncs, or both. See node "Critical Sections" in the
4124 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
4126 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
4127 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
4128 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
4130 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
4132 C code can now use scm_dynwind_current_<foo>_port in a 'dynwind
4133 context' (see above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
4135 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
4137 C code can now use scm_dynwind_fluid in a 'dynwind context' (see
4138 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
4140 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
4142 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
4143 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
4144 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
4146 ** The functions scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed.
4148 You should not have used them.
4150 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
4152 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
4153 private or renamed with a more suitable public name.
4155 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
4157 This macro is not intended for public use.
4159 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
4161 Use scm_is_true (scm_inexact_p (...)) instead.
4163 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
4165 Use scm_is_real instead.
4167 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
4169 Use scm_is_complex instead.
4171 ** Some preprocessor defines have been deprecated.
4173 These defines indicated whether a certain feature was present in Guile
4174 or not. Going forward, assume that the features are always present.
4176 The macros are: USE_THREADS, GUILE_ISELECT, READER_EXTENSIONS,
4177 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS, DYNAMIC_LINKING.
4179 The following macros have been removed completely: MEMOIZE_LOCALS,
4180 SCM_RECKLESS, SCM_CAUTIOUS.
4182 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
4184 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
4187 ** New function: scm_effective_version
4189 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
4190 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
4191 to the distribution" above.
4193 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
4195 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
4196 arguments are now passed directly:
4198 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
4200 This is an incompatible change.
4202 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
4204 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
4205 function in the init section.
4207 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
4209 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
4211 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
4212 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
4213 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
4214 stays roughly constant.
4216 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
4217 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
4218 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
4219 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
4220 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
4223 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
4224 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
4225 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
4226 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
4228 For understanding the memory usage of a GUILE program, the routine
4229 gc-live-object-stats returns an alist containing the number of live
4230 objects for every type.
4233 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
4235 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
4237 ** The struct scm_cell type has been renamed to scm_t_cell
4239 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
4240 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
4241 initializes a new cell (see below).
4243 ** New functions for memory management
4245 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
4246 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
4247 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
4248 cause aborts in long running programs.
4250 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
4251 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
4253 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
4254 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
4255 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
4256 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
4257 details and for upgrading instructions.
4259 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
4260 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
4261 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
4263 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
4265 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
4266 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
4267 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
4268 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
4269 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
4271 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
4272 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
4273 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
4275 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
4276 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
4278 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
4280 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old
4281 macros had problems because with them allocation and initialization
4282 was separated and the GC could sometimes observe half initialized
4283 cells. Only careful coding by the user of SCM_NEWCELL and
4284 SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
4286 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
4288 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
4291 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
4293 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
4295 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
4297 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or to define macros in
4298 Scheme, using 'define-macro'.
4300 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
4302 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
4303 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
4305 ** The names scm_internal_select, scm_thread_sleep, and
4306 scm_thread_usleep have been discouraged.
4308 Use scm_std_select, scm_std_sleep, scm_std_usleep instead.
4310 ** The GC can no longer be blocked.
4312 The global flags scm_gc_heap_lock and scm_block_gc have been removed.
4313 The GC can now run (partially) concurrently with other code and thus
4314 blocking it is not well defined.
4316 ** Many definitions have been removed that were previously deprecated.
4318 scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify,
4319 scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
4320 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2,
4321 scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY,
4322 SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED,
4323 scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL,
4324 SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL,
4325 SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG,
4326 SCM_NUM_SIGS, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
4327 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
4328 scm_eval2, root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
4329 SCM_RWSTRINGP, scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring,
4330 scm_tc7_substring, sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP,
4331 SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
4332 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
4333 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
4334 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
4335 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
4336 scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern, scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
4337 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
4338 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
4339 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
4340 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
4341 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
4342 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
4343 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
4344 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
4345 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
4346 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
4347 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable,
4348 SCM_CHARS, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH.
4350 * Changes to bundled modules
4354 Using the (ice-9 debug) module no longer automatically switches Guile
4355 to use the debugging evaluator. If you want to switch to the
4356 debugging evaluator (which is needed for backtrace information if you
4357 hit an error), please add an explicit "(debug-enable 'debug)" to your
4358 code just after the code to use (ice-9 debug).
4361 Changes since Guile 1.4:
4363 * Changes to the distribution
4365 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
4367 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
4369 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
4370 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
4371 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
4372 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
4373 indicate major changes in Guile.
4375 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
4376 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
4377 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
4378 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
4380 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
4381 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
4382 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
4383 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
4384 micro version number.
4386 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
4388 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
4390 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
4391 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
4393 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
4395 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
4396 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
4397 See INSTALL and README for more information.
4399 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
4401 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
4402 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
4403 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
4406 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
4408 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
4411 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
4413 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
4414 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
4416 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
4418 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
4419 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
4422 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
4424 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
4427 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
4430 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
4432 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
4434 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
4435 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
4436 open-output-string, get-output-string.
4438 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
4440 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
4442 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
4445 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
4447 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
4449 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
4451 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
4452 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
4453 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
4455 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
4457 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
4459 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
4460 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
4469 See README there for more info.
4471 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
4472 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
4475 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
4477 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
4479 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
4481 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
4482 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
4483 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
4485 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
4487 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
4488 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
4489 to be named `and-let*', of course.
4491 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
4492 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
4494 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
4497 (oop goops describe)
4499 (oop goops active-slot)
4500 (oop goops composite-slot)
4502 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
4503 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
4504 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
4506 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
4508 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
4509 in the default environment:
4511 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
4512 %read-line write-line
4514 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
4515 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
4517 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
4519 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
4522 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
4523 can be used for similar functionality.
4525 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
4527 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
4528 it defines two procedures:
4530 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
4532 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
4533 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
4534 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
4537 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
4539 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
4540 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
4541 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
4542 write large strings.
4544 ** New module (ice-9 match)
4546 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
4547 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
4549 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
4551 for complete documentation.
4553 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
4555 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
4556 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
4557 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
4558 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
4560 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
4561 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
4565 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
4566 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
4567 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
4570 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
4573 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
4574 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
4576 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
4577 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
4580 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
4583 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
4585 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
4587 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4589 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
4591 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
4592 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
4593 Scheme programs easier.
4595 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
4596 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
4597 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
4598 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
4599 `cond-expand' when using this option.
4602 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
4603 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
4605 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
4608 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
4610 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
4611 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
4612 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
4615 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4617 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
4619 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
4620 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
4621 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
4622 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
4623 was also ASCII, for example.
4625 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
4627 tag - no replacement.
4628 fseek - replaced by seek.
4629 list* - replaced by cons*.
4631 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
4635 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
4636 (define m (make-safe-module))
4637 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
4638 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
4639 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
4641 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
4643 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
4644 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
4645 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
4647 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
4649 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
4650 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
4651 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
4652 from the issues related to the module system.
4654 *** New function: load-extension
4656 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
4658 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
4660 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
4661 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
4662 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
4664 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
4666 This function registers a initialization function for use by
4667 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
4668 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
4669 support dynamic linking).
4671 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
4673 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
4674 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
4675 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
4676 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
4679 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
4680 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
4681 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
4682 library and initialize it explicitly.
4684 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
4685 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
4687 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
4689 (define-module (foo bar))
4691 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
4693 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
4695 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
4696 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
4698 (scheme-report-environment 5)
4699 (null-environment 5)
4700 (interaction-environment)
4706 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
4708 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
4709 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
4710 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
4711 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
4713 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
4714 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
4715 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
4716 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
4717 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
4718 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
4719 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
4720 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
4721 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
4722 one eval to the next.
4724 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
4725 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
4726 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
4727 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
4728 subforms are at the top-level as well.
4730 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
4731 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
4732 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
4733 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
4734 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
4735 used in a lexical environment.
4737 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
4738 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
4739 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
4740 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
4741 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
4742 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
4744 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
4746 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
4747 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
4748 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
4749 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
4750 new facilities: selection and renaming.
4752 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
4753 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
4754 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
4756 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
4757 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
4759 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
4760 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
4761 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
4763 (remove-if . zonk-y)
4764 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
4766 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
4767 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
4768 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
4769 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
4772 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
4773 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
4774 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
4775 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
4777 (remove-if . zonk-y)
4778 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
4779 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
4781 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
4782 ;; and all four by upcasing.
4783 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
4784 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
4785 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
4787 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
4789 (remove-if . zonk-y)
4790 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
4791 :renamer upcase-symbol))
4793 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
4794 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
4795 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
4797 See manual for more info.
4799 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
4801 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
4802 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
4803 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
4805 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
4807 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
4808 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
4809 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
4811 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
4812 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
4813 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
4814 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
4816 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
4818 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
4819 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
4821 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
4822 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
4823 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
4824 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
4825 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
4828 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
4829 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
4830 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
4831 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
4832 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
4833 successful and #f if it wasn't.
4835 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
4836 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
4837 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
4838 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
4839 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
4841 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
4842 objects are usually permanent.
4844 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
4845 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
4847 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
4849 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
4850 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
4853 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
4857 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
4862 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
4864 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
4865 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
4866 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
4867 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
4869 ** New function `make-object-property'
4871 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
4872 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
4876 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
4877 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
4881 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
4882 source properties eventually.
4884 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
4886 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
4887 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
4888 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
4890 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
4891 will be removed in the next release.
4893 ** New define-module option: pure
4895 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
4900 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
4903 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
4905 Export names NAME1 ...
4907 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
4908 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
4912 (define-module (foo)
4914 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
4917 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
4922 ** New function: object->string OBJ
4924 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
4926 ** New function: port? X
4928 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
4929 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
4931 ** New function: file-port?
4933 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
4935 ** New function: port-for-each proc
4937 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
4938 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
4939 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
4940 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
4941 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
4943 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
4945 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
4946 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
4947 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
4948 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
4949 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
4952 ** New function: close-fdes fd
4954 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
4955 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
4956 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
4957 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
4960 ** New function: crypt password salt
4962 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
4965 ** New function: chroot path
4967 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
4969 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
4971 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
4974 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
4976 Get or set the priority of the running process.
4978 ** New function: getpass prompt
4980 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
4983 ** New function: flock file operation
4985 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
4987 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
4989 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
4992 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
4994 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
4995 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
4996 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
4997 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
4998 of the temporary file.
5000 ** New function: open-input-string string
5002 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
5003 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
5004 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
5006 ** New function: open-output-string
5008 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
5009 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
5011 ** New function: get-output-string
5013 Return the contents of an output string port.
5015 ** New function: identity
5017 Return the argument.
5019 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
5020 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
5022 ** New function: inet-pton family address
5024 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
5025 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
5026 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
5029 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
5030 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
5032 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
5034 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
5035 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
5036 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
5039 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
5040 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
5041 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
5045 Use `identity' instead.
5051 ** Deprecated: return-it
5055 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
5057 Use `string-length' instead.
5059 ** Deprecated: flags
5061 Use `logior' instead.
5063 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
5065 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
5066 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
5067 port-for-each is more flexible.
5069 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
5070 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
5071 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
5073 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
5075 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
5077 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
5079 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
5081 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
5083 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
5084 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
5086 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
5087 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
5089 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
5090 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
5092 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
5094 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
5095 Removed function: builtin-bindings
5097 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
5098 Use module system operations for all variables.
5100 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
5102 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
5105 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
5107 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
5108 The following bugs have been fixed:
5110 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
5111 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
5114 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
5115 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
5116 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
5118 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
5119 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
5121 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
5122 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
5125 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
5126 The expansion used to be like so:
5128 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
5130 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
5132 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
5134 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
5135 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
5137 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
5139 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
5140 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
5141 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
5145 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
5146 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
5148 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
5153 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
5154 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
5156 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
5157 and `d', other keywords allowed.
5158 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
5160 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
5163 * Changes to the C interface
5165 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
5167 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
5168 with "_t". What a concept.
5170 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
5172 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
5174 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
5178 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
5179 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
5181 *** C Functions removed
5183 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
5184 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
5185 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
5186 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
5187 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
5188 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
5189 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
5191 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
5193 Use scm_mem2string instead.
5195 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
5197 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
5199 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
5200 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
5202 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
5204 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
5207 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
5209 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
5211 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
5213 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
5214 Evaluation" in the manual.
5216 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
5218 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
5219 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
5221 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
5223 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
5224 Constructors" in the manual.
5226 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
5228 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
5229 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
5231 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
5233 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
5235 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
5236 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
5237 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
5239 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
5241 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
5243 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
5244 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
5245 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
5248 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
5250 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
5252 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
5253 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
5255 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
5257 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
5258 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
5259 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
5260 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
5262 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
5263 scm_primitive_property_ref
5264 scm_primitive_property_set_x
5265 scm_primitive_property_del_x
5267 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
5268 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
5270 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
5272 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
5273 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
5274 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
5275 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
5277 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
5279 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
5280 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
5281 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
5282 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
5283 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
5284 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
5285 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
5287 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
5288 scm_remember_upto_here
5290 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
5292 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
5294 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
5295 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
5297 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
5299 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
5301 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
5303 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
5305 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
5307 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
5308 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
5309 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
5310 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
5311 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
5312 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
5314 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
5316 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
5318 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
5319 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
5320 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
5322 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
5324 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
5325 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
5326 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
5328 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
5330 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
5331 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
5334 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
5337 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
5338 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
5341 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
5343 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
5345 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
5347 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
5349 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
5351 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
5353 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
5354 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
5355 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
5356 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
5357 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
5358 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
5359 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
5360 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
5361 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
5362 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
5363 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
5364 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
5365 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
5366 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
5367 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
5369 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
5370 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
5371 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
5372 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
5373 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
5374 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
5375 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
5376 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
5377 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
5378 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
5379 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
5380 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
5381 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
5382 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
5383 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
5384 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
5385 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
5386 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
5387 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
5388 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
5389 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
5390 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
5391 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
5392 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
5393 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
5394 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
5395 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
5396 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
5397 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
5399 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
5401 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
5403 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
5404 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
5406 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
5408 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
5410 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
5412 Use scm_string_hash instead.
5414 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
5416 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
5418 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
5420 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
5422 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
5425 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
5426 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
5428 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
5430 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
5432 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
5434 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
5436 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
5438 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
5440 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
5442 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
5445 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
5447 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
5449 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
5451 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
5452 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
5454 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
5455 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
5457 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
5459 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
5460 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
5461 scm_module_define, scm_define.
5463 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
5465 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
5467 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
5468 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
5470 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
5471 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
5472 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
5473 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
5475 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
5476 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
5477 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
5479 Use the new ones from above instead.
5481 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
5483 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
5484 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
5485 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
5487 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
5488 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
5490 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
5491 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
5494 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
5495 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
5497 Use the new functions instead.
5499 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
5502 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
5504 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
5506 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
5509 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
5511 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
5514 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
5516 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
5519 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
5520 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
5521 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
5523 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
5525 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
5526 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
5528 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
5529 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
5530 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
5531 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
5534 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
5536 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
5537 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
5538 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
5539 inexact for an exact.
5541 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
5542 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
5543 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
5546 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
5547 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
5548 accept an inexact argument.
5550 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
5551 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
5553 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
5556 ** New number validation macros:
5557 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
5561 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
5563 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
5564 scm_unprotect_object.
5566 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
5568 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
5570 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
5573 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
5575 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
5579 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
5581 * Changes to the distribution
5583 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
5585 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
5586 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
5587 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
5588 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
5589 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
5590 obtain these programs.
5591 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
5592 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
5594 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
5595 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
5596 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
5597 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
5598 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
5600 However, this approach means that minor differences between
5601 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
5602 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
5603 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
5607 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
5610 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
5611 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
5612 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
5613 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
5615 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
5617 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
5619 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
5620 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
5622 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
5623 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
5625 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
5626 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
5628 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
5629 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
5630 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
5631 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
5633 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
5635 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
5639 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
5640 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
5642 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
5644 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
5645 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
5647 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
5648 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
5649 number of objects of that kind.
5651 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
5653 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
5654 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
5655 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
5656 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
5657 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
5659 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
5661 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
5663 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
5665 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
5668 ** New module (ice-9 time)
5670 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
5672 ** New module (ice-9 history)
5674 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
5676 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5678 ** New command line option --debug
5680 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
5682 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
5684 ** New help facility
5686 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
5687 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
5688 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
5689 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
5690 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
5691 (help) gives this text
5693 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
5694 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
5696 Examples: (help help)
5698 (help "output-string")
5700 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
5702 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
5704 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
5705 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
5708 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
5709 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
5710 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
5713 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
5714 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
5715 use absolute filenames when possible.
5717 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
5718 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
5719 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
5722 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
5724 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
5725 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
5726 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
5727 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
5729 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
5731 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
5733 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
5734 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
5735 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
5737 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
5738 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
5739 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
5741 (read-enable 'positions)
5742 (debug-enable 'debug)
5744 ** Backtraces in scripts
5746 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
5750 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
5752 at the top of the script.
5754 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
5755 The second enables backtraces.)
5757 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
5759 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
5760 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
5761 substantially faster than before.
5763 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
5764 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
5766 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
5767 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
5769 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
5771 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
5772 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
5773 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
5775 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
5776 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
5777 when this hook is run in the future.
5779 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
5780 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
5782 ** Improvements to garbage collector
5784 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
5785 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
5788 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
5789 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
5790 more and more memory for certain programs.)
5792 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
5793 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
5795 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
5796 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
5798 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
5799 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
5800 in order not to need further allocation.)
5802 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
5805 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
5806 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
5807 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
5808 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
5810 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
5812 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
5815 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
5817 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
5820 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
5821 GC in percent of total heap size
5824 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
5825 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
5827 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
5829 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
5830 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
5832 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
5834 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
5835 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
5837 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
5839 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
5840 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
5844 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
5845 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
5847 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
5849 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5851 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
5853 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
5855 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
5857 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
5858 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
5860 (simple-format port message . args)
5861 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
5862 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
5863 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
5864 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
5865 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
5866 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
5867 Does not add a trailing newline."
5869 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
5871 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
5872 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
5874 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
5875 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
5877 ** Deprecated: list*
5879 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
5881 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
5883 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
5884 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
5886 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
5887 is returned as result.
5889 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
5891 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
5893 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
5895 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
5896 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
5899 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
5901 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
5903 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
5904 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
5906 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5908 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
5910 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
5912 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5914 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
5916 Thanks to Greg Badros!
5918 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
5920 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
5921 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
5922 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
5924 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
5927 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
5929 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
5930 the readability of argument checking.
5932 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
5934 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
5936 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
5938 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
5939 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
5940 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
5941 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
5942 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
5943 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
5944 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
5946 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
5948 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
5950 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
5951 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
5953 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
5955 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
5956 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
5959 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
5961 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
5962 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
5963 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
5965 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
5966 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
5967 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
5969 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
5970 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
5971 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
5972 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
5973 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
5974 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
5975 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
5977 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
5978 scm_end_input (object);
5979 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
5980 ptob->flush (object);
5982 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
5983 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
5986 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
5988 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
5990 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
5991 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
5992 removed in a future version.
5994 ** The format of error message strings has changed
5996 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
5997 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
5998 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
5999 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
6001 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
6002 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
6004 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
6007 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
6009 in your configure.in.
6011 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
6016 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
6022 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
6024 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
6028 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
6029 (define make-message string-append)
6031 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
6033 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
6037 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
6042 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
6046 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
6048 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
6049 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
6051 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
6053 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
6054 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
6055 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
6056 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
6057 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
6058 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
6060 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
6061 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
6062 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
6064 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
6065 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
6066 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
6069 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
6070 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
6071 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
6072 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
6073 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
6075 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
6076 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
6077 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
6078 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
6079 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
6080 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
6081 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
6083 Destructors are not yet implemented.
6085 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
6086 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
6087 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
6089 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
6090 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
6091 KEY in the calling thread.
6093 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
6094 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
6095 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
6096 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
6097 associated with the key.
6099 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
6101 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
6102 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
6104 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
6106 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
6107 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
6108 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
6110 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
6112 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
6113 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
6115 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
6117 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
6119 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
6120 returned is undefined.
6122 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
6123 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
6124 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
6126 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
6127 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
6128 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
6130 ** New C level GC hooks
6132 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
6134 scm_before_gc_c_hook
6137 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
6138 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
6139 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
6141 scm_before_mark_c_hook
6142 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
6143 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
6145 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
6146 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
6149 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
6151 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
6152 allocation parameters
6154 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
6155 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
6156 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
6160 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
6161 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
6162 scm_default_max_segment_size
6164 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
6166 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
6167 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
6169 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
6171 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
6172 object and count on the object being protected until
6173 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
6175 The functions also have better time complexity.
6177 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
6178 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
6179 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
6180 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
6181 are no longer needed.
6183 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
6185 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
6186 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
6187 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
6188 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
6190 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
6192 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
6194 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
6196 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
6197 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
6198 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
6199 until this issue has been settled.
6201 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
6203 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
6205 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
6208 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
6210 * Changes to system call interfaces:
6212 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
6213 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
6214 descriptors were checked.
6216 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
6217 atomically written to a pipe.
6219 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
6220 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
6221 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
6222 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
6223 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
6224 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
6225 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
6228 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
6229 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
6230 is changed without calling tzset.
6232 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
6234 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
6235 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
6236 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
6238 (define write-network-long
6239 (lambda (value port)
6240 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
6241 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
6242 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
6244 (define read-network-long
6246 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
6247 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
6248 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
6250 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
6251 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
6253 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
6254 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
6255 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
6256 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
6258 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
6259 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
6260 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
6261 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
6265 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
6267 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
6271 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
6272 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
6273 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
6279 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
6280 for a description of available commands.
6282 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
6283 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
6284 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
6286 (debug-enable 'backwards)
6288 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
6289 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
6291 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
6293 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
6295 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
6296 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
6297 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
6298 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
6299 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
6300 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
6303 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
6305 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
6306 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
6307 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
6308 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
6310 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
6311 the file and should not be affected by this change.
6313 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
6315 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
6317 ** Readline support has changed again.
6319 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
6320 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
6321 to activate readline is now
6323 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
6326 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
6328 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
6329 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
6330 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
6333 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
6334 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
6335 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
6338 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
6339 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
6340 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
6341 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
6342 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
6343 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
6345 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
6346 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
6348 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
6350 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
6351 object it receives is the same string passed to
6352 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
6353 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
6354 string, not the suffix.
6356 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
6357 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
6358 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
6360 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
6362 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
6363 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
6364 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
6365 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
6368 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
6370 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
6372 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
6373 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
6374 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
6375 appear from left to right.
6377 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
6380 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
6382 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
6383 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
6385 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
6389 *** New function: hook? OBJ
6391 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
6393 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
6395 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
6396 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
6397 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
6399 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
6401 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
6403 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
6405 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
6408 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
6410 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
6411 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
6412 mentioning it here anyway.
6414 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
6416 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
6417 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
6418 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
6419 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
6422 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
6424 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
6426 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
6428 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
6429 otherwise return #f.
6431 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
6433 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
6434 returned by `opendir'.
6436 ** New function: using-readline?
6438 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
6440 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
6442 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
6443 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
6445 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6447 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
6449 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
6450 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
6451 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
6453 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
6455 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
6456 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
6458 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
6460 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
6461 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
6462 documentation slots are not yet used.
6464 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
6466 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
6467 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
6468 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
6473 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
6474 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
6475 (string-append x y))
6477 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
6478 can also be used for concatenating strings.
6480 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
6481 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
6482 be made in a clean way.]
6484 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
6486 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
6488 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
6490 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
6491 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
6493 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
6495 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
6497 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
6499 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
6501 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
6502 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
6503 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
6504 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
6507 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
6509 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
6511 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
6513 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
6515 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
6516 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
6518 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
6520 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
6522 Evaluates the body of a special form.
6524 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
6526 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
6527 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
6528 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
6529 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
6530 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
6531 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
6533 This should not make any difference for most users.
6535 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
6537 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
6538 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
6540 *** New functions for applying generic functions
6542 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
6543 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
6544 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
6545 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
6546 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
6548 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
6550 It is now replaced by:
6552 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
6554 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
6555 binds a variable named NAME to it.
6557 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
6559 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
6560 This might change when we get the new module system.
6562 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
6566 Changes since Guile 1.3:
6568 * Changes to mailing lists
6570 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
6572 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
6575 * Changes to the distribution
6577 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
6579 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
6580 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
6581 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
6582 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
6583 you explicitly specify it.
6585 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
6586 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
6587 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
6588 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
6589 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
6592 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
6593 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
6594 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
6595 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
6597 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
6598 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
6599 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
6602 You can activate the readline support by issuing
6604 (use-modules (readline-activator))
6607 from your ".guile" file, for example.
6609 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
6611 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
6612 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
6613 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
6614 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
6616 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
6617 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
6620 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
6622 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
6623 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
6624 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
6625 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
6626 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
6627 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
6628 the Guile interpreter or other unwanted results. An example of
6629 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
6641 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
6642 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
6643 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
6644 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
6645 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
6650 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
6651 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
6659 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
6664 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
6665 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
6668 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
6669 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
6670 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
6671 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
6673 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
6675 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
6677 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
6678 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
6680 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
6682 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
6684 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
6685 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
6687 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
6690 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
6692 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
6694 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
6696 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
6698 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
6700 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
6702 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
6703 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
6704 when the hook was created.
6706 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
6707 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
6708 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
6709 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
6710 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
6711 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
6712 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
6713 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
6714 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
6716 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
6717 the dlopen family of functions.
6719 ** New function `provided?'
6721 - Function: provided? FEATURE
6722 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
6723 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
6724 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
6726 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
6728 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
6729 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
6730 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
6731 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
6734 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
6735 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
6736 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
6737 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
6739 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
6740 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
6741 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
6744 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
6745 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
6746 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
6747 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
6748 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
6749 but with the flag set.
6751 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
6753 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
6754 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
6756 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
6757 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
6758 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
6759 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
6760 available Scheme format implementations.
6762 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
6763 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
6764 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
6765 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
6766 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
6767 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
6768 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
6769 output is to the current error port if available by the
6770 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
6773 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
6774 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
6775 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
6776 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
6777 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
6778 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
6779 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
6780 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
6782 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
6783 be executed at a time.
6786 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
6788 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
6789 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
6790 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
6792 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
6793 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
6794 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
6795 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
6796 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
6797 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
6798 general form of a directive is:
6800 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
6802 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
6804 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
6806 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
6807 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
6808 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
6811 Any (print as `display' does).
6815 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
6819 S-expression (print as `write' does).
6823 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
6829 print number sign always.
6832 print comma separated.
6834 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
6840 print number sign always.
6843 print comma separated.
6845 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
6851 print number sign always.
6854 print comma separated.
6856 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
6862 print number sign always.
6865 print comma separated.
6867 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
6872 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
6876 print a number as a Roman numeral.
6879 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
6882 print a number as an ordinal English number.
6885 print a number as a cardinal English number.
6890 prints `y' and `ies'.
6893 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
6896 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
6901 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
6905 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
6908 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
6909 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
6911 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
6914 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
6915 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
6917 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
6920 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
6922 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
6924 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
6927 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
6929 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
6931 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
6934 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
6937 The sign appears before the padding.
6945 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
6947 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
6952 print N page separators.
6962 newline is ignored, white space left.
6965 newline is left, white space ignored.
6970 relative tabulation.
6976 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
6978 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
6981 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
6983 converts by `string-capitalize'.
6986 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
6989 converts by `string-upcase'.
6992 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
6994 jumps N arguments forward.
6997 jumps 1 argument backward.
7000 jumps N arguments backward.
7003 jumps to the 0th argument.
7006 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
7008 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
7009 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
7011 take argument from N.
7014 true test conditional.
7017 if-else-then conditional.
7023 default clause follows.
7026 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
7028 at most N iterations.
7031 args from next arg (a list of lists).
7034 args from the rest of arguments.
7037 args from the rest args (lists).
7048 aborts if N <= M <= K
7050 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
7053 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
7056 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
7062 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
7064 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
7066 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
7067 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
7068 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
7069 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
7070 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
7071 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
7075 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
7079 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
7085 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
7088 Print a `#\space' character
7090 print N `#\space' characters.
7093 Print a `#\tab' character
7095 print N `#\tab' characters.
7098 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
7099 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
7100 must be a positive decimal number.
7103 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
7104 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
7105 be processed by `read'.
7108 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
7109 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
7110 be processed by `read'.
7113 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
7116 prints format version.
7119 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
7120 and format it accordingly.
7122 *** Configuration Variables
7124 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
7125 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
7126 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
7127 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
7130 format:symbol-case-conv
7131 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
7132 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
7133 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
7134 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
7135 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
7137 format:iobj-case-conv
7138 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
7139 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
7142 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
7145 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
7151 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
7152 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
7153 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
7154 `format' padding style.
7157 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
7158 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
7159 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
7160 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
7164 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
7165 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
7166 directive parameters or modifiers)).
7169 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
7170 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
7171 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
7172 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
7173 parameters or modifiers)).
7176 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
7178 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
7180 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
7181 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
7183 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
7184 string-downcase! functions.
7186 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
7187 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
7189 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
7192 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
7195 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
7196 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
7198 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
7200 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
7201 the symbol had be read by `read'.
7203 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
7204 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
7205 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
7206 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
7207 would if STRING were input.
7209 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
7211 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
7212 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
7213 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
7214 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
7217 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
7219 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
7220 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
7223 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
7225 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
7226 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
7228 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
7229 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
7231 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
7232 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
7233 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
7234 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
7236 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
7237 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
7239 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
7240 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
7241 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
7243 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
7244 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
7246 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
7247 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
7248 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
7249 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
7250 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
7252 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
7253 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
7254 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
7255 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
7256 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
7257 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
7259 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
7260 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
7261 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
7264 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
7265 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
7266 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
7267 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
7268 the following grammar:
7269 ((apples (single-char #\a))
7270 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
7271 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
7272 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
7273 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
7274 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
7275 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
7276 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
7277 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
7278 last option in its combination)
7280 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
7281 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
7282 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
7283 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
7285 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
7286 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
7287 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
7289 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
7290 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
7291 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
7293 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
7294 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
7295 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
7296 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
7297 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
7298 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
7299 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
7300 ordinary argument strings.
7302 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
7303 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
7304 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
7305 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
7307 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
7308 as a list, associated with the empty list.
7310 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
7311 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
7312 - a required option is omitted
7313 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
7314 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
7315 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
7316 - an option predicate fails
7321 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
7324 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
7325 (verbose (required? #f)
7328 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
7329 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
7330 (predicate ,string?))))
7332 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
7333 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
7335 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
7336 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
7337 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
7338 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
7341 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
7343 It will be removed in a few releases.
7345 ** New syntax: lambda*
7346 ** New syntax: define*
7347 ** New syntax: define*-public
7348 ** New syntax: defmacro*
7349 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
7350 Guile now supports optional arguments.
7352 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
7353 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
7354 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
7355 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
7356 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
7358 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
7359 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
7360 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
7362 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
7364 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
7365 and examples for `lambda*':
7368 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
7370 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
7371 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
7372 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
7373 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
7374 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
7375 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
7376 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
7377 can be checked with the bound? macro.
7379 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
7381 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
7382 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
7383 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
7384 are given as keywords are bound to values.
7386 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
7387 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
7388 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
7389 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
7390 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
7391 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
7392 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
7393 and until the procedure is called.
7395 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
7397 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
7398 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
7399 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
7400 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
7401 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
7402 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
7403 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
7404 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
7405 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
7406 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
7408 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
7409 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
7410 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
7411 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
7414 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
7416 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
7417 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
7418 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
7419 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
7421 ** New syntax: and-let*
7422 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
7424 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
7425 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
7426 (<variable> <expression>)
7429 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
7430 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
7431 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
7434 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
7435 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
7436 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
7437 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
7438 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
7439 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
7440 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
7442 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
7443 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
7444 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
7445 shadow earlier bindings.
7447 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
7449 ** New sorting functions
7451 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
7452 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
7453 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
7454 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
7456 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
7457 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
7460 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
7461 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
7462 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
7464 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
7465 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
7466 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
7467 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
7469 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
7470 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
7471 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
7472 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
7473 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
7476 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
7477 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
7478 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
7479 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
7480 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
7481 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
7483 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
7484 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
7485 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
7487 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
7488 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
7489 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
7492 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
7493 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
7494 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
7496 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
7497 Added for compatibility with scsh.
7499 ** New built-in random number support
7501 *** New function: random N [STATE]
7502 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
7503 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
7504 returned have a uniform distribution.
7506 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
7507 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
7508 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
7509 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
7510 effect of the `random' operation.
7512 *** New variable: *random-state*
7513 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
7514 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
7515 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
7516 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
7517 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
7520 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
7521 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
7522 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
7523 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
7524 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
7526 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
7527 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
7528 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
7529 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
7530 initialized using SEED.
7532 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
7533 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
7534 range between 0 and 1.
7536 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
7537 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
7538 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
7539 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
7540 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
7541 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
7542 or a uniform vector of doubles.
7544 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
7545 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
7546 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
7547 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
7548 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
7549 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
7551 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
7552 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
7553 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
7554 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
7556 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
7557 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
7558 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
7559 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
7561 *** New function: random:exp STATE
7562 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
7563 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
7565 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
7567 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
7570 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
7571 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
7574 ** New function: make-guardian
7575 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
7576 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
7577 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
7578 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
7579 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
7581 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
7582 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
7583 one object if at all.
7585 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
7586 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
7587 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
7589 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
7590 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
7591 read again in last-in first-out order.
7593 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
7594 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
7596 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
7598 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
7599 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
7600 file position is used.
7602 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
7603 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
7604 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
7606 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
7607 redefined using seek.
7609 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
7610 size is not supplied.
7612 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
7613 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
7615 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
7616 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
7618 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
7620 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
7621 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
7622 and returns the contents as a single string.
7624 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
7625 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
7626 lists in serial order.
7628 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
7629 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
7630 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
7632 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
7633 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
7634 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
7635 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
7637 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
7638 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
7639 and #f if an error occured.
7641 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
7643 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
7644 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
7645 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
7646 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
7648 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
7650 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
7653 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
7655 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
7658 * Changes to the gh_ interface
7662 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
7663 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
7665 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
7666 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
7670 * Changes to the scm_ interface
7672 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
7674 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
7675 binds a variable named NAME to it.
7677 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
7679 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
7680 might change when we get the new module system.
7682 ** The smob interface
7684 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
7685 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
7687 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
7689 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
7693 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
7694 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
7695 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
7696 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
7697 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
7698 will be freed by the default free function.
7700 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
7701 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
7702 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
7703 `scm_make_smob_type'.
7705 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
7706 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
7707 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
7708 `scm_make_smob_type'.
7710 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
7712 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
7713 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
7717 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
7718 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
7719 `scm_make_smob_type'.
7721 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
7722 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
7723 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
7724 `scm_make_smob_type'.
7726 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
7727 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
7728 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
7730 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
7731 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
7732 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
7733 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
7735 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
7736 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
7737 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
7739 *** scm_newptob has been removed
7743 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
7745 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
7746 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
7747 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
7749 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
7750 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
7751 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
7753 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
7754 a string port's buffer.
7756 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
7757 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
7758 function pointers which together define the current random number
7759 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
7760 number library functions.
7762 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
7765 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
7766 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
7769 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
7770 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
7772 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
7773 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
7775 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
7776 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
7779 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
7780 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
7781 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
7782 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
7784 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
7785 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
7786 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
7787 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
7788 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
7789 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
7790 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
7792 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
7793 by libguile and the application.
7795 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
7796 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
7797 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
7798 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
7800 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
7801 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
7803 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
7804 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
7805 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
7807 ** Random number library functions
7808 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
7809 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
7810 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
7812 The default random state is stored in:
7814 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
7815 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
7816 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
7821 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
7823 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
7824 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
7825 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
7826 isn't a random state.
7828 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
7829 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
7831 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
7832 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
7833 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
7834 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
7836 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
7837 Return 32 random bits.
7839 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
7840 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
7842 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
7843 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
7845 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
7846 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
7848 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
7849 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
7851 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
7852 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
7853 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
7857 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
7859 * Changes to the distribution
7861 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
7862 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
7863 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
7866 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
7867 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
7868 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
7870 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
7871 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
7872 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
7873 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
7876 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
7877 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
7878 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
7880 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
7882 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
7884 *** Function: batch-mode?
7886 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
7889 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
7891 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
7892 case has not been implemented.
7894 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
7895 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
7896 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
7899 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
7900 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
7902 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
7904 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
7906 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
7908 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
7909 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
7912 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
7913 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
7914 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
7915 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
7918 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
7920 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
7921 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
7922 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
7923 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
7924 find those libraries.
7926 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
7927 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
7930 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
7932 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
7933 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
7934 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
7935 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
7937 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
7938 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
7939 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
7943 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
7945 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
7946 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
7947 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
7950 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
7951 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
7952 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
7953 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
7955 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
7956 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
7959 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
7960 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
7961 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
7962 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
7963 compiler where to find the libraries.
7965 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
7966 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
7967 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
7969 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
7970 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
7971 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
7972 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
7973 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
7977 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
7979 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
7980 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
7981 internationalization support.
7983 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
7984 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
7985 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
7986 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
7987 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
7989 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
7990 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
7991 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
7992 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
7993 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
7995 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
7996 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
7997 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
7998 any GNU mirror site.
8000 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
8002 ** New function: add-history STRING
8003 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
8004 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
8005 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
8007 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
8009 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
8010 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
8011 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
8014 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
8015 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
8016 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
8018 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
8020 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
8023 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
8024 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
8027 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
8028 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
8029 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
8030 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
8031 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
8032 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
8034 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
8035 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
8036 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
8037 of the form mentioned above.
8039 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
8040 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
8041 returned in the special `rest' list.
8043 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
8044 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
8046 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
8048 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
8050 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
8052 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
8053 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
8054 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
8055 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
8056 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
8057 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
8058 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
8059 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
8062 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
8064 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
8066 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
8067 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
8070 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
8071 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
8072 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
8076 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
8077 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
8078 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
8079 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
8080 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
8081 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
8082 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
8083 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
8086 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
8088 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
8089 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
8090 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
8092 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
8094 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
8095 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
8097 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
8098 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
8099 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
8101 Why do we have this function?
8102 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
8103 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
8104 primitive, and display it differently, and
8105 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
8106 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
8109 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
8110 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
8113 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
8114 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
8115 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
8116 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
8118 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
8119 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
8122 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
8123 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
8125 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
8127 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
8128 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
8129 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
8130 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
8131 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
8132 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
8133 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
8136 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
8138 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
8139 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
8141 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
8142 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
8143 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
8144 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
8145 properly continue the print chain.
8147 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
8148 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
8149 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
8150 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
8151 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
8152 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
8153 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
8154 print-state, it is simply ignored.
8156 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
8157 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
8158 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
8159 safest to not check for these pairs.
8161 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
8162 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
8163 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
8164 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
8166 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
8168 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
8169 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
8171 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
8173 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
8175 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
8176 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
8177 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
8179 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
8180 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
8181 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
8183 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
8184 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
8185 the following functions and macros:
8187 Function: make-fluid
8189 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
8190 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
8191 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
8192 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
8193 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
8195 Function: fluid? OBJ
8197 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
8199 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
8200 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
8202 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
8203 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
8205 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
8207 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
8208 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
8209 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
8210 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
8211 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
8212 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
8213 modified by `with-fluids*'.
8215 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
8217 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
8218 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
8219 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
8220 should evaluate to a fluid.
8222 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
8224 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
8225 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
8226 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
8227 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
8228 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
8230 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
8233 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
8235 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
8237 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
8239 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
8242 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
8243 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
8244 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
8245 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
8246 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
8249 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
8250 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
8251 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
8253 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
8254 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
8255 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
8257 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
8258 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
8259 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
8260 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
8262 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
8263 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
8264 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
8265 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
8267 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
8268 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
8269 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
8270 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
8272 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
8273 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
8274 their revealed counts set to zero.
8276 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
8277 Returns an integer file descriptor.
8279 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
8280 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
8282 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
8283 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
8285 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
8286 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
8287 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
8289 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
8290 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
8291 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
8293 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
8294 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
8295 default environment inherited by child processes.
8297 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
8298 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
8299 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
8301 The return value is unspecified.
8303 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
8304 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
8305 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
8306 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
8307 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
8309 The return value is unspecified.
8311 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
8312 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
8320 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
8321 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
8324 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
8327 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
8328 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
8329 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
8331 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
8332 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
8333 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
8334 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
8337 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
8338 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
8340 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
8341 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
8342 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
8343 the `environ' procedure.
8345 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
8346 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
8349 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
8350 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
8352 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
8353 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
8354 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
8355 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
8357 *** procedure: times
8358 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
8359 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
8360 return a selected component:
8363 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
8367 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
8370 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
8374 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
8375 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
8379 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
8380 terminated child processes.
8382 ** Removed: list-length
8383 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
8384 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
8386 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
8388 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
8390 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
8392 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
8393 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
8394 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
8395 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
8397 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
8398 extra complexity it introduces.
8400 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
8401 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
8403 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
8404 variable to any non-empty value.
8406 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
8407 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
8409 * Changes to the gh_ interface
8411 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
8412 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
8414 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
8416 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
8417 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
8419 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
8421 ** vector handling routines
8423 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
8424 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
8425 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
8426 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
8427 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
8429 ** pair and list routines
8431 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
8434 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
8436 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
8439 * Changes to the scm_ interface
8441 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
8443 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
8444 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
8445 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
8446 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
8447 site-specific initialization code.
8449 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
8450 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
8451 initialization processes.
8453 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
8454 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
8455 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
8456 initialized properly.
8458 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
8459 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
8460 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
8462 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
8463 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
8464 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
8465 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
8466 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
8468 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
8470 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
8471 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
8472 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
8473 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
8474 objects the smob refers to get marked.
8476 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
8477 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
8478 which look like this:
8481 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
8483 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
8484 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
8487 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
8488 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
8491 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
8493 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
8494 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
8495 you will need to change your functions slightly.
8497 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
8498 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
8499 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
8500 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
8501 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
8503 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
8504 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
8506 int (*free) (SCM port);
8507 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
8508 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
8509 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
8513 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
8514 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
8515 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
8517 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
8520 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
8521 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
8522 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
8524 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
8525 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
8526 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
8529 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
8533 struct timeval *timeout);
8535 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
8536 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
8537 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
8538 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
8539 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
8540 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
8542 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
8543 scm_catch_body_t body,
8545 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
8548 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
8549 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
8550 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
8551 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
8552 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
8553 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
8555 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
8557 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
8560 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
8561 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
8562 spawning threads from application C code.
8564 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
8565 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
8566 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
8567 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
8568 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
8569 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
8571 ** Removed functions:
8573 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
8574 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
8576 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
8578 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
8579 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
8581 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
8583 ** mbstrings are now removed
8585 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
8586 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
8588 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
8590 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
8591 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
8592 their new names and arguments:
8594 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
8595 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
8596 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
8597 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
8600 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
8602 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
8604 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
8607 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
8609 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
8610 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
8611 pass a #f arg to catch.
8613 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
8615 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
8616 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
8619 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
8620 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
8621 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
8622 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
8623 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
8624 reclaim its storage.
8626 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
8627 worrying that some other function you call will call
8628 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
8629 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
8630 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
8631 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
8634 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
8636 * Changes to the distribution
8638 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
8639 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
8642 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
8643 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
8645 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
8646 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
8648 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
8650 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
8651 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
8652 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
8654 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
8656 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
8657 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
8658 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
8659 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
8660 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
8661 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
8663 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
8664 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
8665 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
8668 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
8669 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
8670 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
8671 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
8673 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
8674 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
8675 libraries to your link command:
8677 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
8678 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
8679 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
8680 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
8682 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
8683 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
8684 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
8686 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
8688 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
8689 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
8692 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
8694 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
8695 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
8696 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
8697 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
8698 searched is system dependent.
8700 (dynamic-object? VAL)
8702 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
8704 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
8706 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
8707 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
8709 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
8711 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
8712 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
8713 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
8714 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
8715 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
8718 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
8720 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
8721 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
8722 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
8723 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
8724 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
8726 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
8728 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
8729 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
8731 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
8733 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
8734 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
8735 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
8738 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
8740 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
8741 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
8742 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
8743 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
8745 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
8746 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
8748 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
8750 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
8751 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
8753 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
8755 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
8756 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
8764 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
8766 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
8767 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
8768 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
8769 a more informative way.
8771 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
8772 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
8773 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
8774 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
8775 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
8776 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
8778 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
8779 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
8782 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
8783 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
8784 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
8787 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
8788 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
8789 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
8790 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
8791 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
8792 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
8794 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
8795 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
8796 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
8797 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
8800 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
8801 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
8802 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
8803 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
8804 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
8805 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
8807 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
8808 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
8809 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
8810 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
8811 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
8813 *** regexp functions
8815 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
8816 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
8817 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
8819 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
8820 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
8821 with SCSH regular expressions.
8823 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
8824 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
8825 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
8826 position of STR at which to begin matching.
8828 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
8829 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
8830 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
8831 `string-match' returns `#f'.
8833 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
8834 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
8835 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
8836 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
8837 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
8838 match strings against the compiled regexp.
8840 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
8841 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
8842 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
8843 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
8844 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
8846 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
8848 **** Constant: regexp/extended
8849 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
8850 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
8851 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
8853 **** Constant: regexp/icase
8854 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
8855 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
8857 **** Constant: regexp/newline
8858 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
8860 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
8863 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
8864 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
8865 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
8867 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
8868 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
8869 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
8871 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
8872 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
8873 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
8874 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
8875 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
8878 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
8880 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
8881 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
8882 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
8883 used when different portions of a string are passed to
8884 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
8885 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
8887 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
8888 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
8889 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
8891 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
8892 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
8895 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
8896 and replace them with the contents of another string.
8898 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
8899 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
8900 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
8901 may be one of the following arguments:
8903 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
8905 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
8907 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
8908 the regexp match is written.
8910 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
8911 following the regexp match is written.
8913 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
8914 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
8917 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
8918 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
8919 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
8920 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
8921 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
8922 which should be matched against this regular expression.
8924 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
8927 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
8928 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
8929 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
8930 written out to PORT.
8932 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
8933 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
8934 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
8935 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
8936 will return after processing a single match.
8938 *** Match Structures
8940 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
8941 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
8942 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
8943 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
8944 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
8945 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
8948 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
8949 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
8950 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
8951 information about the original target string that was matched against a
8952 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
8954 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
8955 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
8956 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
8958 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
8959 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
8960 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
8961 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
8962 number N did not match, return `#f'.
8964 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
8965 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
8967 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
8968 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
8970 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
8971 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
8973 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
8974 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
8976 **** Function: match:count MATCH
8977 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
8978 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
8979 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
8981 **** Function: match:string MATCH
8982 Return the original TARGET string.
8984 *** Backslash Escapes
8986 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
8987 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
8988 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
8989 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
8990 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
8991 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
8993 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
8994 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
8995 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
8996 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
8997 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
8998 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
8999 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
9000 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
9002 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
9003 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
9004 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
9005 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
9006 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
9007 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
9008 each match a single backslash in the target string.
9010 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
9011 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
9012 return the resulting string.
9014 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
9015 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
9016 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
9017 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
9018 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
9019 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
9020 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
9021 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
9022 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
9023 translated to the single character `*'.
9025 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
9026 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
9027 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
9028 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
9029 consecutive backslashes:
9031 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
9033 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
9034 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
9035 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
9037 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
9038 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
9039 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
9040 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
9041 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
9042 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
9044 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
9046 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
9047 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
9048 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
9049 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
9050 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
9051 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
9052 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
9053 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
9054 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
9055 cumbersome escape syntax.
9057 * Changes to the gh_ interface
9059 * Changes to the scm_ interface
9061 * Changes to system call interfaces:
9063 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
9066 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
9068 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
9070 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
9073 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
9074 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
9075 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
9076 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
9077 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
9079 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
9080 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
9081 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
9082 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
9083 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
9084 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
9085 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
9088 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
9089 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
9090 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
9093 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
9094 `force-output' on every port open for output.
9096 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
9097 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
9098 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
9099 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
9100 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
9101 installed, you can say:
9103 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
9106 * Changes to the scm_ interface
9108 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
9109 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
9110 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
9111 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
9112 new dynamic roots and threads.
9115 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
9117 * Changes to the distribution.
9119 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
9121 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
9122 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
9123 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
9124 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
9125 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
9126 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
9127 programming language. These are packaged together because the
9128 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
9130 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
9133 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
9134 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
9139 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
9141 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
9142 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
9144 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
9145 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
9146 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
9147 the (command-line) function.
9148 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
9149 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
9150 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
9152 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
9153 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
9154 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
9155 command line arguments
9156 -ds do -s script at this point
9157 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
9158 -h, --help display this help and exit
9159 -v, --version display version information and exit
9160 \ read arguments from following script lines
9162 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
9163 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
9165 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
9168 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
9172 (main (command-line))
9174 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
9176 ekko a speckled gecko
9178 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
9179 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
9180 following list of command-line arguments:
9182 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
9184 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
9185 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
9186 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
9187 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
9188 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
9190 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
9192 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
9194 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
9195 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
9198 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
9199 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
9200 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
9201 SCSH) for circumventing them.
9203 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
9204 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
9205 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
9206 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
9208 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
9212 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
9216 If the user invokes this script as follows:
9218 ekko a speckled gecko
9220 Unix expands this into
9222 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
9224 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
9225 read from the second line of the script, producing:
9227 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
9229 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
9230 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
9232 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
9233 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
9234 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
9235 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
9236 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
9237 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
9238 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
9239 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
9240 it only terminates the argument list.)
9241 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
9242 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
9243 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
9244 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
9245 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
9246 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
9247 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
9248 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
9250 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
9252 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
9253 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
9254 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
9255 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
9256 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
9258 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
9259 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
9260 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
9262 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
9264 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
9265 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
9266 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
9267 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
9270 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
9271 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
9272 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
9274 * Changes to Scheme functions
9276 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
9277 and disabled by default.
9279 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
9280 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
9281 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
9282 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
9284 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
9286 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
9288 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
9289 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
9291 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
9292 (read-set! keywords #f)
9294 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
9295 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
9296 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
9299 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
9300 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
9301 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
9304 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
9305 support for Scheme functions.
9307 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
9308 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
9309 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
9310 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
9313 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
9314 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
9315 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
9318 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
9319 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
9320 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
9323 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
9324 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
9325 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
9326 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
9327 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
9328 display the result as a prompt.
9329 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
9331 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
9332 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
9333 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
9336 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
9337 procedure of zero arguments.
9339 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
9340 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
9341 argument is bound in the current module.
9343 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
9344 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
9345 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
9346 public bindings into the current module.
9348 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
9349 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
9351 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
9352 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
9354 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
9355 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
9357 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
9358 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
9360 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
9361 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
9363 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
9364 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
9365 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
9366 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
9367 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
9369 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
9370 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
9371 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
9372 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
9374 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
9377 ** Changes to I/O functions
9379 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
9380 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
9381 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
9383 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
9384 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
9385 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
9387 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
9388 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
9390 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
9391 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
9392 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
9393 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
9395 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
9397 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
9398 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
9400 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
9401 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
9402 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
9403 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
9404 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
9407 'trim omit delimiter from result
9408 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
9409 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
9410 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
9412 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
9414 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
9415 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
9417 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
9418 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
9419 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
9420 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
9421 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
9423 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
9424 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
9425 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
9427 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
9428 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
9429 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
9430 above, and defaults to 'peek.
9432 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
9433 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
9435 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
9436 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
9438 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
9440 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
9441 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
9442 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
9443 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
9444 a delimiting character.
9445 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
9447 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
9448 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
9449 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
9450 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
9451 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
9452 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
9454 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
9455 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
9457 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
9458 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
9459 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
9461 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
9462 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
9463 the array to read and write.
9465 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
9466 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
9469 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
9471 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
9474 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
9475 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
9476 Values for COMMAND are:
9478 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
9479 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
9480 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
9481 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
9482 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
9483 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
9484 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
9485 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
9487 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
9489 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
9490 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
9491 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
9492 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
9493 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
9494 corresponding return set will be the same.
9496 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
9499 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
9500 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
9501 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
9502 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
9503 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
9504 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
9505 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
9506 special file being created.
9508 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
9509 clashing with various SCSH forks.
9511 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
9512 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
9513 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
9514 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
9515 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
9516 and originating address.
9518 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
9519 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
9520 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
9522 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
9525 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
9526 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
9529 (status:exit-val STATUS)
9530 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
9531 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
9532 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
9533 this function returns #f.
9535 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
9536 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
9537 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
9540 (status:term-sig STATUS)
9541 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
9542 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
9545 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
9546 a valid STATUS value.
9548 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
9550 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
9551 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
9553 Component Accessor Setter
9554 ========================= ============ ============
9555 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
9556 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
9557 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
9558 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
9559 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
9560 year tm:year set-tm:year
9561 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
9562 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
9563 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
9564 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
9565 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
9567 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
9568 describing the host system:
9571 ============================================== ================
9572 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
9573 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
9574 release level of the operating system utsname:release
9575 version level of the operating system utsname:version
9576 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
9578 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
9579 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
9580 system's user database:
9583 ====================== =================
9584 user name passwd:name
9585 user password passwd:passwd
9588 real name passwd:gecos
9589 home directory passwd:dir
9590 shell program passwd:shell
9592 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
9593 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
9594 system's group database:
9597 ======================= ============
9598 group name group:name
9599 group password group:passwd
9601 group members group:mem
9603 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
9604 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
9608 ========================= ===============
9609 official name of host hostent:name
9610 alias list hostent:aliases
9611 host address type hostent:addrtype
9612 length of address hostent:length
9613 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
9615 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
9616 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
9620 ========================= ===============
9621 official name of net netent:name
9622 alias list netent:aliases
9623 net number type netent:addrtype
9624 net number netent:net
9626 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
9627 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
9631 ========================= ===============
9632 official protocol name protoent:name
9633 alias list protoent:aliases
9634 protocol number protoent:proto
9636 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
9637 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
9641 ========================= ===============
9642 official service name servent:name
9643 alias list servent:aliases
9644 port number servent:port
9645 protocol to use servent:proto
9647 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
9648 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
9651 ======================================== ===============
9652 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
9653 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
9654 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
9655 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
9657 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
9658 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
9659 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
9661 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
9662 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
9664 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
9665 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
9667 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
9668 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
9670 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
9672 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
9674 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
9675 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
9676 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
9678 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
9679 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
9680 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
9681 return the remaining characters as a string.
9683 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
9684 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
9685 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
9687 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
9689 * Changes to the gh_ interface
9691 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
9694 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
9697 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
9698 and returns the array
9700 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
9701 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
9702 the user to interpret the data both ways.
9704 * Changes to the scm_ interface
9706 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
9707 symbol's value from C code:
9709 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
9710 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
9711 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
9712 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
9714 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
9715 without assigning them a value.
9717 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
9718 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
9719 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
9721 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
9722 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
9723 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
9725 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
9726 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
9728 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
9729 doesn't actually care about that.
9731 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
9732 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
9733 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
9735 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
9736 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
9737 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
9738 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
9739 which we have just created and initialized.
9741 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
9742 should one occur. We call it like this:
9743 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
9745 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
9746 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
9747 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
9748 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
9749 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
9750 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
9753 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
9754 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
9755 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
9756 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
9757 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
9758 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
9759 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
9762 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
9763 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
9764 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
9765 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
9766 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
9769 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
9770 scm_internal_catch, except:
9772 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
9773 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
9774 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
9775 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
9778 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
9779 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
9780 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
9782 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
9783 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
9784 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
9785 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
9788 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
9789 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
9790 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
9792 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
9793 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
9794 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
9795 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
9796 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
9798 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
9799 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
9800 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
9802 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
9803 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
9804 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
9806 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
9807 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
9809 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
9810 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
9811 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
9814 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
9815 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
9816 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
9817 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
9818 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
9819 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
9820 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
9823 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
9824 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
9826 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
9827 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
9828 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
9829 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
9830 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
9833 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
9834 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
9836 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
9837 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
9840 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
9841 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
9843 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
9846 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
9847 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
9848 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
9849 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
9850 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
9851 given the following arguments:
9853 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
9855 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
9857 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
9859 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
9862 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
9863 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
9864 command-line arguments.
9866 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
9867 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
9868 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
9869 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
9870 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
9871 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
9874 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
9877 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
9878 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
9880 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
9881 rearranged slightly. They are now:
9883 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
9884 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
9885 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
9886 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
9888 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
9889 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
9891 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
9892 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
9893 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
9894 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
9896 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
9897 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
9899 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
9900 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
9902 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
9904 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
9905 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
9906 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
9909 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
9910 returns a port instead of an FD object.
9912 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
9913 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
9918 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
9921 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
9923 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
9924 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
9925 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
9926 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
9928 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
9930 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
9932 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
9933 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
9934 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
9935 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
9936 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
9937 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
9938 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
9939 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
9940 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
9941 for more information.
9943 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
9944 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
9946 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
9947 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
9948 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
9949 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
9950 following two lines at the top of the file:
9952 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
9955 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
9956 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
9957 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
9959 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
9961 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
9963 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
9966 (display (car args))
9967 (if (pair? (cdr args))
9969 (loop (cdr args)))))
9972 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
9973 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
9974 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
9975 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
9976 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
9977 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
9981 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
9984 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
9987 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
9989 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
9990 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
9991 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
9992 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
9993 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
9996 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
9997 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
9998 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
9999 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
10000 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
10003 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
10006 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
10007 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
10008 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
10011 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
10012 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
10013 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
10015 to see a backtrace, and
10016 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
10017 to see them by default.
10021 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
10023 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
10025 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
10026 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
10029 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
10030 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
10031 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
10032 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
10035 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
10036 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
10037 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
10038 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
10039 functions which inspired them.
10041 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
10042 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
10046 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
10048 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
10050 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
10051 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
10054 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
10055 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
10056 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
10058 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
10059 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
10060 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
10061 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
10062 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
10064 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
10066 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
10067 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
10068 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
10071 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
10074 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
10076 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
10077 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
10078 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
10079 above should serve their purposes.
10081 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
10082 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
10083 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
10084 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
10086 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
10089 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
10090 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
10091 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
10092 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
10094 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
10095 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
10096 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
10097 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
10099 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
10100 for the `read' function.
10103 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
10104 to that of `integer?'.
10106 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
10107 use the R4RS names for these functions.
10109 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
10110 it simply returns the object's property list.
10112 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
10113 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
10114 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
10115 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
10117 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
10119 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
10122 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
10124 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
10125 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
10127 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
10129 void (*main_func) (),
10132 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
10133 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
10134 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
10135 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
10136 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
10138 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
10139 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
10140 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
10141 know which arguments have been processed.
10143 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
10144 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
10145 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
10146 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
10147 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
10149 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
10150 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
10151 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
10152 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
10153 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
10154 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
10155 people from making that mistake.
10157 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
10158 convenient ways to override these when desired.
10160 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
10162 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
10166 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
10169 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
10170 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
10171 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
10172 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
10175 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
10176 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
10177 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
10178 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
10181 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
10182 have been added to the Guile library.
10184 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
10185 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
10186 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
10189 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
10190 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
10191 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
10193 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
10194 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
10195 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
10196 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
10197 argument from the list.
10200 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
10203 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
10204 null-terminated string, and returns it.
10206 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
10207 to a Scheme port object.
10209 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
10210 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
10215 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
10217 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
10218 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
10219 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
10220 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
10221 code as a special datatype.
10223 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
10224 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
10225 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
10226 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
10227 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
10230 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
10231 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
10232 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
10233 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
10234 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
10236 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
10239 Copyright information:
10241 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
10243 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
10244 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
10245 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
10246 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
10248 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
10249 of this document, or of portions of it,
10250 under the above conditions, provided also that they
10251 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
10256 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"