1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes. -*- text -*-
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
7 Changes since Guile 1.4:
9 * Changes to the distribution
11 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
13 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
14 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
15 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
16 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
17 indicate major changes in Guile.
19 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
20 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
21 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
22 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
24 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
25 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
26 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
27 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
30 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
32 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
34 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
35 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
36 See INSTALL and README for more information.
38 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
40 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
43 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
45 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
46 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
47 open-output-string, get-output-string.
49 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
51 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
53 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
56 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
58 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
60 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
62 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
63 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
66 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
68 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
70 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
71 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
80 See README there for more info.
82 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
83 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
86 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
88 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
90 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
92 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
93 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
94 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
96 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
98 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
99 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
100 to be named `and-let*', of course.
102 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
103 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
105 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
110 (oop goops active-slot)
111 (oop goops composite-slot)
113 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
114 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
115 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
117 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
119 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
120 in the default environment:
122 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
123 %read-line write-line
125 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
126 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
128 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
130 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
133 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
134 can be used for similar functionality.
136 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
138 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
139 it defines a single procedure:
141 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
143 Read characters from an fport or file descriptor into a string
144 STR. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
147 ** New module (ice-9 match)
149 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
150 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
152 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
154 for complete documentation.
156 This module requires SLIB to be installed and available from Guile.
158 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
160 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
161 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
162 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
163 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
165 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
166 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
170 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
171 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
172 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
175 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
178 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
179 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
181 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
182 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
185 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
188 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
190 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
192 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
194 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
195 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
196 Scheme programs easier.
198 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
199 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
200 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
201 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
202 `cond-expand' when using this option.
205 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
206 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
208 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
212 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
214 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
216 tag - no replacement.
217 fseek - replaced by seek.
218 list* - replaced by cons*.
220 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
224 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
225 (define m (make-safe-module))
226 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
227 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
228 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
230 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
232 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
233 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
234 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
236 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
238 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
239 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
240 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
241 from the issues related to the module system.
243 *** New function: load-extension
245 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
247 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
249 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
250 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
251 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
253 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
255 This function registers a initialization function for use by
256 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
257 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
258 support dynamic linking).
260 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
262 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
263 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
264 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
265 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
268 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
269 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
270 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
271 library and initialize it explicitely.
273 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
274 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
276 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
278 (define-module (foo bar))
280 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
282 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
284 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
285 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
287 (scheme-report-environment 5)
289 (interaction-environment)
295 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
297 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
298 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
299 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
300 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
302 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
303 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
304 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
305 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
306 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
307 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
308 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
309 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
310 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
311 one eval to the next.
313 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
314 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
315 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
316 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
317 subforms are at the top-level as well.
319 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
320 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
321 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
322 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
323 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
324 used in a lexical environment.
326 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
328 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
329 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
330 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
332 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
334 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
335 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
336 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
338 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
339 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
340 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
341 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
343 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
345 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
346 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
348 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
349 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
350 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
351 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
352 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
355 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
356 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
357 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
358 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
359 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
360 successful and #f if it wasn't.
362 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
363 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
364 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
365 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
366 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
368 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
369 objects are usually permanent.
371 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
372 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
374 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
376 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
377 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
380 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
384 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
389 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
391 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
392 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
393 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
394 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
396 ** New function `make-object-property'
398 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
399 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
403 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
404 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
408 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
409 source properties eventually.
411 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
413 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
414 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
415 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
417 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
418 will be removed in the next release.
420 ** New define-module option: pure
422 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
427 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
430 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
432 Export names NAME1 ...
434 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
435 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
441 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
444 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
449 ** New function: object->string OBJ
451 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
453 ** New function: port? X
455 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
456 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
458 ** New function: file-port?
460 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
462 ** New function: port-for-each proc
464 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
465 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
466 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
467 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
468 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
470 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
472 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
473 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
474 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
475 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
476 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
479 ** New function: close-fdes fd
481 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
482 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
483 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
484 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
487 ** New function: crypt password salt
489 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
492 ** New function: chroot path
494 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
496 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
498 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
501 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
503 Get or set the priority of the running process.
505 ** New function: getpass prompt
507 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
510 ** New function: flock file operation
512 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
514 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
516 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
519 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
521 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
522 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
523 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
524 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
525 of the temporary file.
527 ** New function: open-input-string string
529 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
530 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
531 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
533 ** New function: open-output-string
535 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
536 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
538 ** New function: get-output-string
540 Return the contents of an output string port.
542 ** New function: identity
546 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
547 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
549 ** New function: inet-pton family address
551 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
552 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
553 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
556 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
557 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
559 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
561 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
562 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
563 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
566 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
567 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
568 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
572 Use `identity' instead.
578 ** Deprecated: return-it
582 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
584 Use `string-length' instead.
588 Use `logior' instead.
590 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
592 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
593 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
594 port-for-each is more flexible.
596 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
597 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
598 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
600 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
602 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
604 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
606 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
608 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
610 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
611 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
613 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
614 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
616 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
617 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
619 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
621 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
622 Removed function: builtin-bindings
624 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
625 Use module system operations for all variables.
627 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
629 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
632 * Changes to the C interface
634 ** Deprecated feature have been removed.
638 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
639 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
641 *** C Functions removed
643 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
644 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
645 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
646 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
647 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
648 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
649 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
651 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
653 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
655 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
656 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
658 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
660 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
663 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
665 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
667 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
669 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
670 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
671 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
673 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
675 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
677 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
678 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
679 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
682 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
684 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
686 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
687 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
689 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
691 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
692 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
693 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
694 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
696 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
697 scm_primitive_property_ref
698 scm_primitive_property_set_x
699 scm_primitive_property_del_x
701 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
702 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
704 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
706 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
707 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
708 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
709 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
711 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
713 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
714 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
715 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
716 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
717 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
718 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
719 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
721 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
722 scm_remember_upto_here
724 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
726 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
728 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
729 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
731 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
733 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
735 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
737 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
739 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
741 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
742 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
743 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
744 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
745 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
746 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
748 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
750 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
752 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
753 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
754 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
756 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
758 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
759 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
760 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
762 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
764 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
765 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
768 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
771 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
772 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
775 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
777 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
779 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
781 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
783 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
785 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
787 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
788 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
789 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
790 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
791 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
792 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
793 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
794 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
795 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
796 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
797 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
798 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
799 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
800 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
801 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
803 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
804 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
805 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
806 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
807 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
808 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
809 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
810 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
811 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
812 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
813 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
814 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
815 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
816 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
817 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
818 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
819 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
820 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
821 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
822 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
823 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
824 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
825 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
826 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
827 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
828 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
829 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
830 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
831 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
833 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
835 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
837 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
838 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
840 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
842 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
844 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
846 Use scm_string_hash instead.
848 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
850 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
852 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
854 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
856 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
859 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
860 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
862 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
864 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
866 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
868 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
870 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
872 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
874 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
876 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
879 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
881 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
883 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
885 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
886 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
888 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
889 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
891 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
893 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
894 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
895 scm_module_define, scm_define.
897 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
899 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
901 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
902 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
904 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
905 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
906 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
907 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
909 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
910 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
911 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
913 Use the new ones from above instead.
915 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
917 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
918 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
919 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
921 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
922 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
924 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
925 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
928 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
929 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
931 Use the new functions instead.
933 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
936 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
938 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
940 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
943 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
945 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
948 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
950 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
953 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
954 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
955 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
957 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
959 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
960 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
962 With the exception of the misterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
963 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
964 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
965 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
968 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
969 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
970 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
973 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
974 types and Scheme numbers.
976 ** New number validation macros:
977 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
982 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
984 * Changes to the distribution
986 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
988 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
989 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
990 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
991 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
992 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
993 obtain these programs.
994 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
995 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
997 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
998 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
999 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
1000 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
1001 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
1003 However, this approach means that minor differences between
1004 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
1005 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
1006 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
1010 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
1013 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
1014 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
1015 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
1016 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
1018 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
1020 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
1022 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
1023 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
1025 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
1026 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
1028 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
1029 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
1031 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
1032 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
1033 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
1034 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
1036 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
1038 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
1042 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
1043 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
1045 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
1047 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
1048 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
1050 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
1051 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
1052 number of objects of that kind.
1054 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
1056 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
1057 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
1058 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
1059 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
1060 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
1062 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
1064 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
1066 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
1068 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
1071 ** New module (ice-9 time)
1073 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
1075 ** New module (ice-9 history)
1077 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
1079 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1081 ** New command line option --debug
1083 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
1085 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
1087 ** New help facility
1089 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
1090 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
1091 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
1092 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
1093 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
1094 (help) gives this text
1096 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
1097 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
1099 Examples: (help help)
1101 (help "output-string")
1103 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
1105 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
1107 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
1108 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
1111 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
1112 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
1113 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
1116 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
1117 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
1118 use absolute filenames when possible.
1120 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
1121 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
1122 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
1125 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
1127 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
1128 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
1129 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
1130 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
1132 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
1134 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
1136 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
1137 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
1138 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
1140 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
1141 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
1142 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
1144 (read-enable 'positions)
1145 (debug-enable 'debug)
1147 ** Backtraces in scripts
1149 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
1153 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
1155 at the top of the script.
1157 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
1158 The second enables backtraces.)
1160 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
1162 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
1163 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
1164 substantially faster than before.
1166 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
1167 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
1169 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
1170 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
1172 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
1174 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
1175 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
1176 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
1178 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
1179 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
1180 when this hook is run in the future.
1182 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
1183 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
1185 ** Improvements to garbage collector
1187 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
1188 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
1191 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
1192 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
1193 more and more memory for certain programs.)
1195 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
1196 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
1198 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
1199 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
1201 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
1202 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
1203 in order not to need further allocation.)
1205 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
1208 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
1209 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
1210 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
1211 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
1213 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
1215 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
1218 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
1220 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
1223 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
1224 GC in percent of total heap size
1227 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
1228 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
1230 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
1232 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
1233 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
1235 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
1237 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
1238 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
1240 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
1242 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
1243 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
1247 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
1248 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
1250 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
1252 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1254 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
1256 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
1258 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
1260 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
1261 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
1263 (simple-format port message . args)
1264 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
1265 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
1266 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
1267 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
1268 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
1269 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
1270 Does not add a trailing newline."
1272 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
1274 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
1275 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
1277 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
1278 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
1280 ** Deprecated: list*
1282 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
1284 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
1286 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
1287 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
1289 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
1290 is returned as result.
1292 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
1294 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
1296 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
1298 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
1299 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
1302 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
1304 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
1306 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
1307 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
1309 * Changes to the gh_ interface
1311 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
1313 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
1315 * Changes to the scm_ interface
1317 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
1319 Thanks to Greg Badros!
1321 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
1323 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
1324 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
1325 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
1327 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
1330 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
1332 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
1333 the readability of argument checking.
1335 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
1337 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
1339 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
1341 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
1342 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
1343 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
1344 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
1345 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
1346 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
1347 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
1349 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
1351 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
1353 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
1354 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
1356 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
1358 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
1359 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
1362 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
1364 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
1365 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
1366 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
1368 Further, it is recommended not to rely on implementation details for guile's
1369 current implementation of bignums. It is planned to replace this
1370 implementation with gmp in the future.
1372 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
1373 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
1374 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
1376 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
1377 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
1378 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
1379 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
1380 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
1381 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
1382 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
1384 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
1385 scm_end_input (object);
1386 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
1387 ptob->flush (object);
1389 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
1390 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
1393 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
1395 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
1397 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
1398 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
1399 removed in a future version.
1401 ** The format of error message strings has changed
1403 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
1404 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
1405 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
1406 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
1408 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
1409 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
1411 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
1414 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
1416 in your configure.in.
1418 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
1423 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
1429 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
1431 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
1435 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
1436 (define make-message string-append)
1438 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
1440 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
1444 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
1449 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
1453 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
1455 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
1456 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
1458 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
1460 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
1461 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
1462 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
1463 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
1464 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
1465 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
1467 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
1468 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
1469 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
1471 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
1472 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
1473 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
1476 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
1477 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
1478 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
1479 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
1480 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
1482 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
1483 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
1484 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
1485 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
1486 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
1487 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
1488 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
1490 Destructors are not yet implemented.
1492 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
1493 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
1494 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
1496 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
1497 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
1498 KEY in the calling thread.
1500 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
1501 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
1502 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
1503 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
1504 associated with the key.
1506 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
1508 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
1509 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
1511 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
1513 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
1514 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
1515 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
1517 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
1519 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
1520 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
1522 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
1524 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
1526 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
1527 returned is undefined.
1529 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
1530 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
1531 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
1533 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
1534 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
1535 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
1537 ** New C level GC hooks
1539 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
1541 scm_before_gc_c_hook
1544 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
1545 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
1546 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
1548 scm_before_mark_c_hook
1549 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
1550 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
1552 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
1553 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
1556 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
1558 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
1559 allocation parameters
1561 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
1562 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
1563 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
1567 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
1568 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
1569 scm_default_max_segment_size
1571 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
1573 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
1574 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
1576 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
1578 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
1579 object and count on the object being protected until
1580 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
1582 The functions also have better time complexity.
1584 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
1585 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
1586 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
1587 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
1588 are no longer needed.
1590 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
1592 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
1593 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
1594 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
1595 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
1597 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
1599 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
1601 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
1603 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
1604 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
1605 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
1606 until this issue has been settled.
1608 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
1610 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
1612 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
1615 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
1617 * Changes to system call interfaces:
1619 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
1620 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
1621 descriptors were checked.
1623 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
1624 atomically written to a pipe.
1626 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
1627 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
1628 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
1629 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
1630 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
1631 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
1632 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
1635 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
1636 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
1637 is changed without calling tzset.
1639 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
1641 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
1642 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
1643 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
1645 (define write-network-long
1646 (lambda (value port)
1647 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
1648 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
1649 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
1651 (define read-network-long
1653 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
1654 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
1655 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
1657 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
1658 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
1660 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
1661 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
1662 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
1663 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
1665 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
1666 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
1667 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
1668 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
1672 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
1674 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1678 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
1679 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
1680 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
1686 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
1687 for a description of available commands.
1689 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
1690 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
1691 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
1693 (debug-enable 'backwards)
1695 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
1696 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
1698 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
1700 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
1702 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
1703 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
1704 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
1705 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
1706 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
1707 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
1710 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
1712 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
1713 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
1714 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
1715 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
1717 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
1718 the file and should not be affected by this change.
1720 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
1722 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1724 ** Readline support has changed again.
1726 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
1727 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
1728 to activate readline is now
1730 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
1733 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
1735 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
1736 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
1737 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
1740 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
1741 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
1742 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
1745 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
1746 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
1747 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
1748 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
1749 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
1750 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
1752 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
1753 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
1755 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
1757 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
1758 object it receives is the same string passed to
1759 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
1760 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
1761 string, not the suffix.
1763 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
1764 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
1765 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
1767 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
1769 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
1770 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
1771 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
1772 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
1775 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
1777 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
1779 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
1780 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
1781 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
1782 appear from left to right.
1784 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
1787 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
1789 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
1790 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
1792 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
1796 *** New function: hook? OBJ
1798 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
1800 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
1802 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
1803 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
1804 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
1806 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
1808 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
1810 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
1812 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
1815 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
1817 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
1818 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
1819 mentioning it here anyway.
1821 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
1823 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
1824 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
1825 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
1826 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
1829 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
1831 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
1833 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
1835 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
1836 otherwise return #f.
1838 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
1840 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
1841 returned by `opendir'.
1843 ** New function: using-readline?
1845 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
1847 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
1849 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
1850 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
1852 * Changes to the scm_ interface
1854 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
1856 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
1857 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
1858 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
1860 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
1862 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
1863 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
1865 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
1867 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
1868 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
1869 documentation slots are not yet used.
1871 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
1873 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
1874 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
1875 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
1880 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
1881 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
1882 (string-append x y))
1884 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
1885 can also be used for concatenating strings.
1887 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
1888 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
1889 be made in a clean way.]
1891 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
1893 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
1895 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
1897 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
1898 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
1900 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
1902 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
1904 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
1906 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
1908 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
1909 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
1910 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
1911 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
1914 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
1916 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
1918 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
1920 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
1922 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
1923 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
1925 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
1927 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
1929 Evaluates the body of a special form.
1931 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
1933 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
1934 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
1935 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
1936 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
1937 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
1938 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
1940 This should not make any difference for most users.
1942 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
1944 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
1945 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
1947 *** New functions for applying generic functions
1949 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
1950 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
1951 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
1952 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
1953 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
1955 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
1957 It is now replaced by:
1959 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
1961 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
1962 binds a variable named NAME to it.
1964 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
1966 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
1967 This might change when we get the new module system.
1969 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
1973 Changes since Guile 1.3:
1975 * Changes to mailing lists
1977 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
1979 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
1982 * Changes to the distribution
1984 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
1986 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
1987 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
1988 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
1989 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
1990 you explicitly specify it.
1992 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
1993 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
1994 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
1995 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
1996 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
1999 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
2000 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
2001 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
2002 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
2004 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
2005 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
2006 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
2009 You can activate the readline support by issuing
2011 (use-modules (readline-activator))
2014 from your ".guile" file, for example.
2016 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2018 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
2019 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
2020 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
2021 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
2023 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
2024 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
2027 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2029 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
2030 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
2031 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
2032 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
2033 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
2034 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
2035 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
2036 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
2048 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
2049 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
2050 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
2051 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
2052 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
2057 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
2058 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
2066 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
2071 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
2072 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
2075 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
2076 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
2077 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
2078 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
2080 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
2082 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
2084 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
2085 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
2087 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
2089 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
2091 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
2092 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
2094 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
2097 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
2099 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
2101 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
2103 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
2105 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
2107 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
2109 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
2110 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
2111 when the hook was created.
2113 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
2114 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
2115 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
2116 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
2117 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
2118 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
2119 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
2120 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
2121 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
2123 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
2124 the dlopen family of functions.
2126 ** New function `provided?'
2128 - Function: provided? FEATURE
2129 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
2130 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
2131 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
2133 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
2135 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
2136 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
2137 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
2138 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
2141 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
2142 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
2143 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
2144 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
2146 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
2147 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
2148 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
2151 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
2152 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
2153 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
2154 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
2155 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
2156 but with the flag set.
2158 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
2160 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
2161 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
2163 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
2164 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
2165 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
2166 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
2167 available Scheme format implementations.
2169 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
2170 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
2171 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
2172 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
2173 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
2174 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
2175 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
2176 output is to the current error port if available by the
2177 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
2180 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
2181 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
2182 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
2183 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
2184 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
2185 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
2186 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
2187 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
2189 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
2190 be executed at a time.
2193 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
2195 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
2196 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
2197 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
2199 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
2200 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
2201 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
2202 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
2203 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
2204 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
2205 general form of a directive is:
2207 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
2209 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
2211 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
2213 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
2214 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
2215 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
2218 Any (print as `display' does).
2222 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
2226 S-expression (print as `write' does).
2230 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
2236 print number sign always.
2239 print comma separated.
2241 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
2247 print number sign always.
2250 print comma separated.
2252 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
2258 print number sign always.
2261 print comma separated.
2263 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
2269 print number sign always.
2272 print comma separated.
2274 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
2279 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
2283 print a number as a Roman numeral.
2286 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
2289 print a number as an ordinal English number.
2292 print a number as a cardinal English number.
2297 prints `y' and `ies'.
2300 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
2303 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
2308 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
2312 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
2315 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
2316 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
2318 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2321 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
2322 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
2324 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2327 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
2329 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
2331 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2334 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
2336 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
2338 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2341 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
2344 The sign appears before the padding.
2352 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
2354 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
2359 print N page separators.
2369 newline is ignored, white space left.
2372 newline is left, white space ignored.
2377 relative tabulation.
2383 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
2385 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
2388 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
2390 converts by `string-capitalize'.
2393 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
2396 converts by `string-upcase'.
2399 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
2401 jumps N arguments forward.
2404 jumps 1 argument backward.
2407 jumps N arguments backward.
2410 jumps to the 0th argument.
2413 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
2415 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
2416 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
2418 take argument from N.
2421 true test conditional.
2424 if-else-then conditional.
2430 default clause follows.
2433 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
2435 at most N iterations.
2438 args from next arg (a list of lists).
2441 args from the rest of arguments.
2444 args from the rest args (lists).
2455 aborts if N <= M <= K
2457 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
2460 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
2463 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
2469 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
2471 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
2473 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
2474 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
2475 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
2476 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
2477 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
2478 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
2482 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
2486 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
2492 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
2495 Print a `#\space' character
2497 print N `#\space' characters.
2500 Print a `#\tab' character
2502 print N `#\tab' characters.
2505 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
2506 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
2507 must be a positive decimal number.
2510 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
2511 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
2512 be processed by `read'.
2515 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
2516 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
2517 be processed by `read'.
2520 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
2523 prints format version.
2526 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
2527 and format it accordingly.
2529 *** Configuration Variables
2531 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
2532 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
2533 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
2534 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
2537 format:symbol-case-conv
2538 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
2539 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
2540 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
2541 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
2542 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
2544 format:iobj-case-conv
2545 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
2546 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
2549 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
2552 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
2558 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
2559 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
2560 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
2561 `format' padding style.
2564 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
2565 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
2566 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
2567 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
2571 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
2572 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
2573 directive parameters or modifiers)).
2576 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
2577 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
2578 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
2579 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
2580 parameters or modifiers)).
2583 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
2585 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
2587 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
2588 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
2590 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
2591 string-downcase! functions.
2593 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
2594 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
2596 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
2599 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
2602 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
2603 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
2605 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
2607 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
2608 the symbol had be read by `read'.
2610 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
2611 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
2612 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
2613 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
2614 would if STRING were input.
2616 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
2618 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
2619 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
2620 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
2621 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
2624 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
2626 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
2627 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
2630 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
2632 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
2633 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
2635 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
2636 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
2638 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
2639 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
2640 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
2641 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
2643 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
2644 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
2646 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
2647 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
2648 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
2650 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
2651 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
2653 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
2654 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
2655 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
2656 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
2657 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
2659 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
2660 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
2661 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
2662 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
2663 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
2664 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
2666 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
2667 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
2668 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
2671 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
2672 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
2673 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
2674 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
2675 the following grammar:
2676 ((apples (single-char #\a))
2677 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
2678 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
2679 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
2680 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
2681 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
2682 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
2683 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
2684 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
2685 last option in its combination)
2687 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
2688 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
2689 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
2690 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
2692 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
2693 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
2694 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
2696 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
2697 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
2698 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
2700 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
2701 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
2702 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
2703 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
2704 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
2705 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
2706 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
2707 ordinary argument strings.
2709 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
2710 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
2711 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
2712 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
2714 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
2715 as a list, associated with the empty list.
2717 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
2718 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
2719 - a required option is omitted
2720 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
2721 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
2722 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
2723 - an option predicate fails
2728 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
2731 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
2732 (verbose (required? #f)
2735 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
2736 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
2737 (predicate ,string?))))
2739 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
2740 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
2742 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
2743 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
2744 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
2745 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
2748 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
2750 It will be removed in a few releases.
2752 ** New syntax: lambda*
2753 ** New syntax: define*
2754 ** New syntax: define*-public
2755 ** New syntax: defmacro*
2756 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
2757 Guile now supports optional arguments.
2759 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
2760 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
2761 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
2762 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
2763 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
2765 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
2766 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
2767 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
2769 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
2771 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
2772 and examples for `lambda*':
2775 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
2777 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
2778 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
2779 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
2780 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
2781 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
2782 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
2783 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
2784 can be checked with the bound? macro.
2786 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
2788 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
2789 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
2790 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
2791 are given as keywords are bound to values.
2793 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
2794 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
2795 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
2796 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
2797 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
2798 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
2799 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
2800 and until the procedure is called.
2802 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
2804 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
2805 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
2806 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
2807 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
2808 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
2809 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
2810 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
2811 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
2812 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
2813 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
2815 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
2816 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
2817 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
2818 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
2821 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
2823 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
2824 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
2825 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
2826 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
2828 ** New syntax: and-let*
2829 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
2831 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
2832 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
2833 (<variable> <expression>)
2836 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
2837 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
2838 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
2841 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
2842 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
2843 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
2844 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
2845 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
2846 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
2847 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
2849 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
2850 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
2851 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
2852 shadow earlier bindings.
2854 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
2856 ** New sorting functions
2858 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
2859 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
2860 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
2861 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
2863 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
2864 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
2867 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
2868 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
2869 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
2871 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
2872 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
2873 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
2874 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
2876 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
2877 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
2878 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
2879 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
2880 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
2883 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
2884 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
2885 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
2886 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
2887 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
2888 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
2890 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
2891 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
2892 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
2894 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
2895 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
2896 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
2899 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
2900 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
2901 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
2903 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
2904 Added for compatibility with scsh.
2906 ** New built-in random number support
2908 *** New function: random N [STATE]
2909 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
2910 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
2911 returned have a uniform distribution.
2913 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
2914 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
2915 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
2916 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
2917 effect of the `random' operation.
2919 *** New variable: *random-state*
2920 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
2921 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
2922 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
2923 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
2924 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
2927 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
2928 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
2929 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
2930 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
2931 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
2933 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
2934 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
2935 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
2936 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
2937 initialized using SEED.
2939 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
2940 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
2941 range between 0 and 1.
2943 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
2944 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
2945 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
2946 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
2947 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
2948 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
2949 or a uniform vector of doubles.
2951 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
2952 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
2953 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
2954 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
2955 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
2956 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
2958 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
2959 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
2960 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
2961 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
2963 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
2964 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
2965 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
2966 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
2968 *** New function: random:exp STATE
2969 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
2970 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
2972 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
2974 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
2977 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
2978 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
2981 ** New function: make-guardian
2982 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
2983 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
2984 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
2985 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
2986 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
2988 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
2989 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
2990 one object if at all.
2992 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
2993 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
2994 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
2996 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
2997 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
2998 read again in last-in first-out order.
3000 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
3001 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
3003 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
3005 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
3006 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
3007 file position is used.
3009 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
3010 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
3011 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
3013 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
3014 redefined using seek.
3016 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
3017 size is not supplied.
3019 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
3020 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
3022 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
3023 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
3025 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
3027 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
3028 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
3029 and returns the contents as a single string.
3031 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
3032 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
3033 lists in serial order.
3035 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
3036 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
3037 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
3039 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
3040 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
3041 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
3042 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
3044 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
3045 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
3046 and #f if an error occured.
3048 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
3050 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
3051 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
3052 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
3053 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
3055 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
3057 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
3060 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
3062 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
3065 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3069 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
3070 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
3072 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
3073 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
3077 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3079 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
3081 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3082 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3084 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3086 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
3087 might change when we get the new module system.
3089 ** The smob interface
3091 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
3092 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
3094 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
3096 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
3100 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
3101 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
3102 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
3103 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
3104 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
3105 will be freed by the default free function.
3107 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
3108 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
3109 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3110 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3112 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
3113 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
3114 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3115 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3117 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
3119 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
3120 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
3124 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
3125 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3126 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3128 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
3129 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
3130 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3131 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3133 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
3134 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
3135 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
3137 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
3138 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
3139 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
3140 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
3142 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
3143 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
3144 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
3146 *** scm_newptob has been removed
3150 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
3152 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
3153 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
3154 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
3156 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
3157 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
3158 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
3160 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
3161 a string port's buffer.
3163 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
3164 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
3165 function pointers which together define the current random number
3166 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
3167 number library functions.
3169 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
3172 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
3173 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
3176 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
3177 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
3179 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
3180 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
3182 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
3183 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
3186 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
3187 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
3188 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
3189 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
3191 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
3192 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
3193 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
3194 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
3195 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
3196 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
3197 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
3199 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
3200 by libguile and the application.
3202 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
3203 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
3204 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
3205 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
3207 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
3208 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
3210 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
3211 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
3212 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
3214 ** Random number library functions
3215 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
3216 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
3217 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
3219 The default random state is stored in:
3221 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
3222 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
3223 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
3228 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
3230 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
3231 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
3232 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
3233 isn't a random state.
3235 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
3236 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
3238 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
3239 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
3240 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
3241 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
3243 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3244 Return 32 random bits.
3246 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3247 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
3249 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3250 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
3252 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3253 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
3255 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
3256 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
3258 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
3259 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
3260 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
3264 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
3266 * Changes to the distribution
3268 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
3269 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
3270 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
3273 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
3274 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
3275 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
3277 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
3278 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
3279 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
3280 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
3283 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
3284 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
3285 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
3287 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3289 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
3291 *** Function: batch-mode?
3293 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
3296 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
3298 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
3299 case has not been implemented.
3301 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
3302 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
3303 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
3306 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
3307 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
3309 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
3311 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
3313 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
3315 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
3316 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
3319 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
3320 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
3321 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
3322 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
3325 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
3327 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
3328 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
3329 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
3330 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
3331 find those libraries.
3333 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
3334 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
3337 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
3339 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
3340 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
3341 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
3342 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
3344 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
3345 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
3346 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
3350 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
3352 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
3353 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
3354 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
3357 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
3358 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
3359 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
3360 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
3362 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
3363 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
3366 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
3367 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
3368 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
3369 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
3370 compiler where to find the libraries.
3372 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
3373 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
3374 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
3376 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
3377 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
3378 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
3379 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
3380 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
3384 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3386 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
3387 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
3388 internationalization support.
3390 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
3391 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
3392 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
3393 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
3394 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
3396 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
3397 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
3398 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
3399 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
3400 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
3402 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
3403 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
3404 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
3405 any GNU mirror site.
3407 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
3409 ** New function: add-history STRING
3410 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
3411 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
3412 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
3414 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
3416 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
3417 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
3418 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
3421 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
3422 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
3423 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
3425 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
3427 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
3430 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
3431 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
3434 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
3435 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
3436 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
3437 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
3438 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
3439 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
3441 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
3442 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
3443 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
3444 of the form mentioned above.
3446 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
3447 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
3448 returned in the special `rest' list.
3450 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
3451 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
3453 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
3455 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
3457 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
3459 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
3460 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
3461 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
3462 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
3463 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
3464 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
3465 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
3466 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
3469 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
3471 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
3473 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
3474 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
3477 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
3478 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
3479 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
3483 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
3484 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
3485 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
3486 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
3487 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
3488 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
3489 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
3490 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
3493 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
3495 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
3496 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
3497 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
3499 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
3501 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
3502 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
3504 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
3505 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
3506 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
3508 Why do we have this function?
3509 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
3510 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
3511 primitive, and display it differently, and
3512 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
3513 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
3516 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
3517 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
3520 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
3521 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
3522 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
3523 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
3525 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
3526 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
3529 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
3530 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
3532 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
3534 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
3535 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
3536 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
3537 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
3538 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
3539 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
3540 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
3543 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
3545 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
3546 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
3548 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
3549 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
3550 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
3551 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
3552 properly continue the print chain.
3554 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
3555 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
3556 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
3557 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
3558 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
3559 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
3560 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
3561 print-state, it is simply ignored.
3563 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
3564 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
3565 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
3566 safest to not check for these pairs.
3568 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
3569 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
3570 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
3571 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
3573 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
3575 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
3576 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
3578 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
3580 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
3582 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
3583 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
3584 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
3586 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
3587 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
3588 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
3590 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
3591 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
3592 the following functions and macros:
3594 Function: make-fluid
3596 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
3597 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
3598 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
3599 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
3600 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
3602 Function: fluid? OBJ
3604 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
3606 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
3607 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
3609 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
3610 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
3612 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
3614 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
3615 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
3616 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
3617 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
3618 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
3619 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
3620 modified by `with-fluids*'.
3622 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
3624 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
3625 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
3626 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
3627 should evaluate to a fluid.
3629 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
3631 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
3632 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
3633 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
3634 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
3635 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
3637 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
3640 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
3642 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
3644 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
3646 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
3649 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
3650 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
3651 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
3652 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
3653 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
3656 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
3657 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
3658 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
3660 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
3661 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
3662 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
3664 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
3665 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
3666 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
3667 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
3669 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
3670 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
3671 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
3672 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
3674 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
3675 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
3676 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
3677 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
3679 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
3680 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
3681 their revealed counts set to zero.
3683 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3684 Returns an integer file descriptor.
3686 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3687 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
3689 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3690 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
3692 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3693 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
3694 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
3696 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
3697 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
3698 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
3700 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
3701 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
3702 default environment inherited by child processes.
3704 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
3705 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
3706 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
3708 The return value is unspecified.
3710 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
3711 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
3712 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
3713 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
3714 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
3716 The return value is unspecified.
3718 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
3719 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
3727 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
3728 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
3731 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
3734 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
3735 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
3736 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
3738 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
3739 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
3740 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
3741 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
3744 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
3745 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
3747 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
3748 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
3749 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
3750 the `environ' procedure.
3752 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
3753 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
3756 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
3757 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
3759 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
3760 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
3761 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
3762 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
3764 *** procedure: times
3765 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
3766 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
3767 return a selected component:
3770 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
3774 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
3777 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
3781 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
3782 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
3786 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
3787 terminated child processes.
3789 ** Removed: list-length
3790 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
3791 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
3793 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
3795 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
3797 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
3799 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
3800 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
3801 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
3802 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
3804 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
3805 extra complexity it introduces.
3807 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
3808 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
3810 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
3811 variable to any non-empty value.
3813 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
3814 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
3816 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3818 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
3819 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
3821 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
3823 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
3824 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
3826 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
3828 ** vector handling routines
3830 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
3831 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
3832 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
3833 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
3834 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
3836 ** pair and list routines
3838 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
3841 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
3843 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
3846 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3848 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
3850 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
3851 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
3852 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
3853 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
3854 site-specific initialization code.
3856 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
3857 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
3858 initialization processes.
3860 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
3861 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
3862 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
3863 initialized properly.
3865 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
3866 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
3867 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
3869 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
3870 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
3871 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
3872 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
3873 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
3875 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
3877 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
3878 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
3879 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
3880 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
3881 objects the smob refers to get marked.
3883 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
3884 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
3885 which look like this:
3888 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
3890 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
3891 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
3894 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
3895 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
3898 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
3900 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
3901 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
3902 you will need to change your functions slightly.
3904 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
3905 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
3906 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
3907 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
3908 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
3910 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
3911 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
3913 int (*free) (SCM port);
3914 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
3915 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
3916 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
3920 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
3921 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
3922 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
3924 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
3927 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
3928 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
3929 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
3931 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
3932 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
3933 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
3936 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
3940 struct timeval *timeout);
3942 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
3943 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
3944 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
3945 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
3946 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
3947 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
3949 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
3950 scm_catch_body_t body,
3952 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
3955 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
3956 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
3957 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
3958 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
3959 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
3960 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
3962 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
3964 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
3967 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
3968 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
3969 spawning threads from application C code.
3971 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
3972 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
3973 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
3974 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
3975 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
3976 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
3978 ** Removed functions:
3980 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
3981 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
3983 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
3985 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
3986 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
3988 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
3990 ** mbstrings are now removed
3992 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
3993 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
3995 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
3997 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
3998 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
3999 their new names and arguments:
4001 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
4002 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
4003 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
4004 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
4007 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
4009 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
4011 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
4014 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
4016 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
4017 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
4018 pass a #f arg to catch.
4020 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
4022 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
4023 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
4026 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
4027 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
4028 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
4029 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
4030 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
4031 reclaim its storage.
4033 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
4034 worrying that some other function you call will call
4035 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
4036 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
4037 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
4038 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
4041 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
4043 * Changes to the distribution
4045 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
4046 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
4049 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
4050 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
4052 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4053 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4055 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
4057 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
4058 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
4059 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
4061 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4063 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
4064 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
4065 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
4066 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
4067 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
4068 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
4070 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
4071 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
4072 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
4075 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
4076 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
4077 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
4078 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
4080 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
4081 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
4082 libraries to your link command:
4084 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
4085 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
4086 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
4087 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
4089 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
4090 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
4091 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
4093 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4095 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
4096 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
4099 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
4101 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
4102 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
4103 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
4104 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
4105 searched is system dependent.
4107 (dynamic-object? VAL)
4109 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
4111 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
4113 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
4114 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
4116 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
4118 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
4119 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
4120 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
4121 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
4122 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
4125 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
4127 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
4128 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
4129 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
4130 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
4131 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
4133 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
4135 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
4136 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
4138 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
4140 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
4141 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
4142 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
4145 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
4147 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
4148 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
4149 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
4150 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
4152 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
4153 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
4155 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
4157 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
4158 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
4160 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
4162 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
4163 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
4171 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
4173 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
4174 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
4175 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
4176 a more informative way.
4178 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
4179 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
4180 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
4181 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
4182 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
4183 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
4185 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
4186 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
4189 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
4190 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
4191 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
4194 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
4195 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
4196 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
4197 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
4198 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
4199 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
4201 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
4202 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
4203 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
4204 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
4207 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
4208 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
4209 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
4210 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
4211 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
4212 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
4214 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
4215 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
4216 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
4217 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
4218 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
4220 *** regexp functions
4222 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
4223 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
4224 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
4226 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
4227 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
4228 with SCSH regular expressions.
4230 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
4231 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
4232 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
4233 position of STR at which to begin matching.
4235 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
4236 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
4237 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
4238 `string-match' returns `#f'.
4240 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
4241 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
4242 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
4243 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
4244 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
4245 match strings against the compiled regexp.
4247 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
4248 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
4249 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
4250 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
4251 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
4253 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
4255 **** Constant: regexp/extended
4256 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
4257 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
4258 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
4260 **** Constant: regexp/icase
4261 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
4262 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
4264 **** Constant: regexp/newline
4265 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
4267 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
4270 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
4271 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
4272 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
4274 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
4275 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
4276 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
4278 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
4279 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
4280 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
4281 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
4282 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
4285 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
4287 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
4288 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
4289 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
4290 used when different portions of a string are passed to
4291 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
4292 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
4294 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
4295 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
4296 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
4298 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
4299 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
4302 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
4303 and replace them with the contents of another string.
4305 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
4306 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
4307 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
4308 may be one of the following arguments:
4310 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
4312 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
4314 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
4315 the regexp match is written.
4317 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
4318 following the regexp match is written.
4320 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
4321 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
4324 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
4325 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
4326 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
4327 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
4328 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
4329 which should be matched against this regular expression.
4331 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
4334 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
4335 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
4336 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
4337 written out to PORT.
4339 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
4340 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
4341 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
4342 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
4343 will return after processing a single match.
4345 *** Match Structures
4347 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
4348 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
4349 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
4350 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
4351 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
4352 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
4355 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
4356 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
4357 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
4358 information about the original target string that was matched against a
4359 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
4361 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
4362 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
4363 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
4365 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
4366 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
4367 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
4368 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
4369 number N did not match, return `#f'.
4371 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
4372 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
4374 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
4375 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
4377 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
4378 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
4380 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
4381 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
4383 **** Function: match:count MATCH
4384 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
4385 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
4386 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
4388 **** Function: match:string MATCH
4389 Return the original TARGET string.
4391 *** Backslash Escapes
4393 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
4394 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
4395 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
4396 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
4397 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
4398 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
4400 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
4401 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
4402 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
4403 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
4404 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
4405 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
4406 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
4407 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
4409 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
4410 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
4411 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
4412 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
4413 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
4414 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
4415 each match a single backslash in the target string.
4417 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
4418 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
4419 return the resulting string.
4421 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
4422 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
4423 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
4424 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
4425 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
4426 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
4427 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
4428 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
4429 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
4430 translated to the single character `*'.
4432 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
4433 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
4434 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
4435 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
4436 consecutive backslashes:
4438 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
4440 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
4441 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
4442 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
4444 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
4445 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
4446 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
4447 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
4448 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
4449 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
4451 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
4453 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
4454 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
4455 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
4456 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
4457 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
4458 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
4459 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
4460 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
4461 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
4462 cumbersome escape syntax.
4464 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4466 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4468 * Changes to system call interfaces:
4470 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
4473 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
4475 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
4477 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
4480 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
4481 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
4482 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
4483 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
4484 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
4486 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
4487 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
4488 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
4489 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
4490 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
4491 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
4492 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
4495 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
4496 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
4497 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
4500 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
4501 `force-output' on every port open for output.
4503 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
4504 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
4505 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
4506 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
4507 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
4508 installed, you can say:
4510 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
4513 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4515 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
4516 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
4517 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
4518 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
4519 new dynamic roots and threads.
4522 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
4524 * Changes to the distribution.
4526 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
4528 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
4529 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
4530 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
4531 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
4532 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
4533 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
4534 programming language. These are packaged together because the
4535 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
4537 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
4540 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
4541 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
4546 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4548 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
4549 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
4551 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
4552 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
4553 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
4554 the (command-line) function.
4555 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
4556 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
4557 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
4559 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
4560 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
4561 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
4562 command line arguments
4563 -ds do -s script at this point
4564 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
4565 -h, --help display this help and exit
4566 -v, --version display version information and exit
4567 \ read arguments from following script lines
4569 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
4570 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
4572 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
4575 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
4579 (main (command-line))
4581 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
4583 ekko a speckled gecko
4585 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
4586 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
4587 following list of command-line arguments:
4589 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
4591 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
4592 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
4593 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
4594 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
4595 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
4597 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
4599 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
4601 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
4602 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
4605 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
4606 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
4607 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
4608 SCSH) for circumventing them.
4610 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
4611 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
4612 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
4613 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
4615 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
4619 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
4623 If the user invokes this script as follows:
4625 ekko a speckled gecko
4627 Unix expands this into
4629 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
4631 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
4632 read from the second line of the script, producing:
4634 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
4636 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
4637 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
4639 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
4640 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
4641 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
4642 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
4643 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
4644 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
4645 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
4646 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
4647 it only terminates the argument list.)
4648 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
4649 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
4650 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
4651 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
4652 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
4653 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
4654 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
4655 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
4657 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4659 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
4660 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
4661 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
4662 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
4663 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
4665 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
4666 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
4667 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
4669 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
4671 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
4672 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
4673 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
4674 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
4677 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
4678 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
4679 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
4681 * Changes to Scheme functions
4683 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
4684 and disabled by default.
4686 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
4687 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
4688 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
4689 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
4691 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
4693 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
4695 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
4696 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
4698 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
4699 (read-set! keywords #f)
4701 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
4702 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
4703 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
4706 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
4707 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
4708 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
4711 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
4712 support for Scheme functions.
4714 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
4715 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
4716 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
4717 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
4720 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
4721 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
4722 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
4725 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
4726 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
4727 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
4730 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
4731 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
4732 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
4733 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
4734 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
4735 display the result as a prompt.
4736 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
4738 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
4739 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
4740 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
4743 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
4744 procedure of zero arguments.
4746 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
4747 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
4748 argument is bound in the current module.
4750 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
4751 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
4752 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
4753 public bindings into the current module.
4755 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
4756 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
4758 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
4759 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
4761 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
4762 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
4764 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
4765 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
4767 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
4768 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
4770 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
4771 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
4772 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
4773 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
4774 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
4776 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
4777 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
4778 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
4779 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
4781 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
4784 ** Changes to I/O functions
4786 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
4787 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
4788 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
4790 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
4791 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
4792 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
4794 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
4795 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
4797 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
4798 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
4799 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
4800 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
4802 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
4804 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
4805 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
4807 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
4808 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
4809 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
4810 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
4811 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
4814 'trim omit delimiter from result
4815 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
4816 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
4817 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
4819 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
4821 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
4822 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
4824 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
4825 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
4826 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
4827 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
4828 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
4830 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
4831 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
4832 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
4834 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
4835 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
4836 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
4837 above, and defaults to 'peek.
4839 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
4840 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
4842 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
4843 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
4845 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
4847 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
4848 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
4849 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
4850 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
4851 a delimiting character.
4852 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
4854 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
4855 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
4856 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
4857 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
4858 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
4859 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
4861 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
4862 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
4864 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
4865 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
4866 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
4868 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
4869 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
4870 the array to read and write.
4872 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
4873 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
4876 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
4878 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
4881 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
4882 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
4883 Values for COMMAND are:
4885 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
4886 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
4887 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
4888 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
4889 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
4890 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
4891 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
4892 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
4894 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
4896 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
4897 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
4898 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
4899 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
4900 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
4901 corresponding return set will be the same.
4903 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
4906 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
4907 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
4908 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
4909 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
4910 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
4911 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
4912 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
4913 special file being created.
4915 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
4916 clashing with various SCSH forks.
4918 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
4919 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
4920 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
4921 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
4922 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
4923 and originating address.
4925 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
4926 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
4927 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
4929 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
4932 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
4933 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
4936 (status:exit-val STATUS)
4937 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
4938 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
4939 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
4940 this function returns #f.
4942 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
4943 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
4944 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
4947 (status:term-sig STATUS)
4948 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
4949 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
4952 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
4953 a valid STATUS value.
4955 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
4957 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
4958 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
4960 Component Accessor Setter
4961 ========================= ============ ============
4962 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
4963 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
4964 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
4965 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
4966 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
4967 year tm:year set-tm:year
4968 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
4969 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
4970 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
4971 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
4972 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
4974 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
4975 describing the host system:
4978 ============================================== ================
4979 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
4980 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
4981 release level of the operating system utsname:release
4982 version level of the operating system utsname:version
4983 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
4985 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
4986 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
4987 system's user database:
4990 ====================== =================
4991 user name passwd:name
4992 user password passwd:passwd
4995 real name passwd:gecos
4996 home directory passwd:dir
4997 shell program passwd:shell
4999 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
5000 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
5001 system's group database:
5004 ======================= ============
5005 group name group:name
5006 group password group:passwd
5008 group members group:mem
5010 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
5011 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
5015 ========================= ===============
5016 official name of host hostent:name
5017 alias list hostent:aliases
5018 host address type hostent:addrtype
5019 length of address hostent:length
5020 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
5022 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
5023 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
5027 ========================= ===============
5028 official name of net netent:name
5029 alias list netent:aliases
5030 net number type netent:addrtype
5031 net number netent:net
5033 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
5034 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
5038 ========================= ===============
5039 official protocol name protoent:name
5040 alias list protoent:aliases
5041 protocol number protoent:proto
5043 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
5044 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
5048 ========================= ===============
5049 official service name servent:name
5050 alias list servent:aliases
5051 port number servent:port
5052 protocol to use servent:proto
5054 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
5055 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
5058 ======================================== ===============
5059 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
5060 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
5061 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
5062 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
5064 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
5065 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
5066 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
5068 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
5069 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
5071 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
5072 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
5074 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
5075 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
5077 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
5079 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
5081 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
5082 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
5083 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
5085 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
5086 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
5087 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
5088 return the remaining characters as a string.
5090 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
5091 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
5092 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
5094 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
5096 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5098 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
5101 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
5104 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
5105 and returns the array
5107 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
5108 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
5109 the user to interpret the data both ways.
5111 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5113 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
5114 symbol's value from C code:
5116 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
5117 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
5118 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
5119 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
5121 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
5122 without assigning them a value.
5124 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
5125 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
5126 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
5128 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
5129 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
5130 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
5132 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
5133 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
5135 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
5136 doesn't actually care about that.
5138 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
5139 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
5140 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
5142 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
5143 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
5144 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
5145 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
5146 which we have just created and initialized.
5148 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
5149 should one occur. We call it like this:
5150 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
5152 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
5153 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
5154 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
5155 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
5156 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
5157 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
5160 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
5161 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
5162 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
5163 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
5164 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
5165 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
5166 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
5169 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
5170 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
5171 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
5172 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
5173 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
5176 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
5177 scm_internal_catch, except:
5179 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
5180 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
5181 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
5182 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
5185 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
5186 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
5187 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
5189 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
5190 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
5191 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
5192 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
5195 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
5196 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
5197 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
5199 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
5200 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
5201 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
5202 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
5203 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
5205 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
5206 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
5207 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
5209 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
5210 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
5211 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
5213 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
5214 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
5216 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
5217 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
5218 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
5221 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
5222 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
5223 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
5224 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
5225 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
5226 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
5227 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
5230 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
5231 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
5233 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
5234 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
5235 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
5236 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
5237 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
5240 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
5241 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
5243 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
5244 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
5247 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
5248 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
5250 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5253 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
5254 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
5255 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
5256 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
5257 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
5258 given the following arguments:
5260 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
5262 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
5264 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
5266 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5269 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
5270 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
5271 command-line arguments.
5273 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
5274 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
5275 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
5276 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
5277 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
5278 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
5281 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5284 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
5285 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
5287 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
5288 rearranged slightly. They are now:
5290 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5291 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
5292 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
5293 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
5295 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5296 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
5298 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5299 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
5300 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
5301 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
5303 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5304 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
5306 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
5307 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
5309 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
5311 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
5312 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
5313 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
5316 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
5317 returns a port instead of an FD object.
5319 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
5320 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
5325 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
5328 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
5330 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
5331 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
5332 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
5333 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
5335 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
5337 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
5339 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
5340 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
5341 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
5342 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
5343 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
5344 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
5345 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
5346 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
5347 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
5348 for more information.
5350 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
5351 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
5353 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
5354 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
5355 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
5356 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
5357 following two lines at the top of the file:
5359 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5362 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
5363 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
5364 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
5366 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
5368 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5370 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
5373 (display (car args))
5374 (if (pair? (cdr args))
5376 (loop (cdr args)))))
5379 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
5380 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
5381 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
5382 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
5383 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
5384 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
5388 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
5391 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
5394 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
5396 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
5397 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
5398 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
5399 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
5400 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
5403 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
5404 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
5405 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
5406 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
5407 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
5410 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
5413 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
5414 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
5415 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
5418 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
5419 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
5420 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
5422 to see a backtrace, and
5423 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
5424 to see them by default.
5428 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
5430 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
5432 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
5433 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
5436 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
5437 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
5438 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
5439 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
5442 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
5443 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
5444 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
5445 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
5446 functions which inspired them.
5448 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
5449 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
5453 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
5455 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
5457 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
5458 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
5461 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
5462 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
5463 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
5465 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
5466 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
5467 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
5468 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
5469 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
5471 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
5473 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
5474 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
5475 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
5478 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
5481 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
5483 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
5484 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
5485 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
5486 above should serve their purposes.
5488 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
5489 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
5490 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
5491 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
5493 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
5496 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
5497 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
5498 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
5499 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
5501 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
5502 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
5503 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
5504 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
5506 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
5507 for the `read' function.
5510 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
5511 to that of `integer?'.
5513 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
5514 use the R4RS names for these functions.
5516 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
5517 it simply returns the object's property list.
5519 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
5520 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
5521 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
5522 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
5524 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
5526 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
5529 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
5531 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
5532 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
5534 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
5536 void (*main_func) (),
5539 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
5540 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
5541 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
5542 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
5543 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
5545 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
5546 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
5547 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
5548 know which arguments have been processed.
5550 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
5551 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
5552 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
5553 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
5554 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
5556 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
5557 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
5558 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
5559 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
5560 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
5561 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
5562 people from making that mistake.
5564 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
5565 convenient ways to override these when desired.
5567 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
5569 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
5573 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
5576 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
5577 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
5578 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
5579 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
5582 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
5583 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
5584 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
5585 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
5588 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
5589 have been added to the Guile library.
5591 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
5592 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
5593 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
5596 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
5597 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
5598 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
5600 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
5601 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
5602 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
5603 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
5604 argument from the list.
5607 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
5610 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
5611 null-terminated string, and returns it.
5613 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
5614 to a Scheme port object.
5616 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
5617 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
5622 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
5624 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
5625 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
5626 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
5627 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
5628 code as a special datatype.
5630 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
5631 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
5632 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
5633 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
5634 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
5637 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
5638 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
5639 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
5640 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
5641 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
5643 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
5646 Copyright information:
5648 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
5650 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
5651 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
5652 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
5653 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
5655 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
5656 of this document, or of portions of it,
5657 under the above conditions, provided also that they
5658 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
5663 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"